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DayZ Immersion/Lore Suggestion

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I recently watched the interview with Brian Hicks that a youtuber (who's name I forget) posted online. Its reinvigorated my love for this game, and I've spent the past several days just exploring the map, and "feeling the game." I can't help but make assumptions about the lore of the game - especially considering my many, many, many playthroughs of Arma II's campaign.

One thing I noticed is that all over the map we see destroyed T72s, BDRM-2s, and BMP2s. Perhaps its just me, but I tend to create stories in my head about what's happened in a specific spot. One thing I noticed in particular is a destroyed combined arms company in column formation near Kamenka. Three T72s, two BMPs, and some trucks. May not seem like much, but then I remembered Arma II's campaign. 

What if, during/directly prior to the outbreak, Chernarus was at war with Russia? This would explain the inability of the CDF to contain the outbreak (and perhaps explain the origins of the outbreak itself?), and the buildup of military hardware (such as a full combined arms platoon!) in locations with no real strategic importance; e.g. Kamenka. I'm not entirely certain if the northern border is to Russia, or just that of South Zagoria, but either way, it'd be really cool to see a sort of "procedural destruction" of the map - in the sense that the closer to the coast you are, the farther you are from the "battlefield" where you had the CDF fighting the Russians. 

Anyways...I'm sure the creative development team at Bohemia and on the DayZ project has all this worked out already - now that I think about it, it seems stupid that the game's lore wouldn't have been decided already. :P

Either way, as an "explorer" and not necessarily a PVPer/Hero/Bandit, I'd really like to see the lore take a more prominent role in the game. Perhaps notes, or newspapers, that you can find as loot that sort of tell the game's backstory.

Anyways, I'm open to any feedback/suggestion/plain shitposting that follows

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I think story wise DayZ takes place sometimes after the events of Arma 2, which is to help explain why there's some NATO gear there.  It would also make sense that being on the border of Russia that they would deploy forces durring an outbreak, to either guard their border, deal with refugees/infected, or to try and take advantage of the chaos.

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in my opinion DayZ is taking place after a zombie virus apocalypse (obviously) and the army fought the undeads for like .. 2 weeks with their weapons (thats why we find nato and military gear) also the rest of the world tried to help them (thats why we have russian helicopter crashes and american / european heli crashes) and in the same time when the army fought the zombies half of them made some evacuation points (like we see at the very west side of the map on the coast, some army tents, medical tents and so on) to help the rest of the population, those who are not infected. And the plan was to drive all the survivors to Tisy millitary base and escape the infection (why Tisy? because Tisy is the biggest military base, there are bunkers with resources of food, ammo, weapons etc. , and also Tisy have some concrete platforms where helicopters can land and take survivors somewhere safe. 

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And this plan failed, the army was outnumber and the zombies took over Chernarus .
 

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I am really into the history and lore of pre-infection Chernarus as well. The amount of work that was put in by the ArmA 2 dev team to bring Chernarus to life through its rich, tragic, and complicated history has always impressed me. Anyone that is even remotely curious about the history of Chernarus should, at the very least, read up on the events of 2009 that are covered in the A2 Harvest Red SP campaign, or play through it themselves.

OP, you're correct about DayZ maintaining, and continuing to enrich, the 'canon' pre-infection Chernarus history. While all the other official maps released for ArmA/Operation Flashpoint take place in the same "Armaverse," AFIK, DayZ is the only one that has split off of that into an alternate timeline that starts with whenever the infection occurred.

Though I am 100% behind the decision to keep the exact details about the infection vague, I love seeing how the devs have been able to develop Chernarus in a way that makes the country's troubled past even more detailed, while not disrupting it's canon history in any significant way.

Just a few examples:

  • Except for the NWAF, military locations along the northern part of the map (that borders with Russia) show evidence of two separate destructive events - the ruined leftovers of the Russian "peacekeeping" operation (read: unofficial support of the Chedaki rebellion to create instability to justify an invasion and occupation/repatriation of the ethnic Russian Chernarussian province of South Zagoria) that were targeted by CDF/NATO operations in 2009, and the hastily made forward operating bases made during the infection. The ruined Russian armored column north of Krasnoe is a nice touch that's worth mentioning.
  • The presence of statues honoring the Soviet general known as Aleksei Vasilii Guba, from OFP
  • The ruins of the village of Kumyrna, which was burned to the ground (and IIRC, along with all its residents) by the Chedaki (AKA Chernarussian Movement of the Red Star - the evil bastards that wore those black berets you find in the game)

One of the best things about the Harvest Red campaign was the way your character was thrown right from the start into a complex, ongoing situation with little preparation and that in order to succeed, you needed to learn about far more than just your assigned objectives. Understanding the underlying conflicts between the two main ethnic groups in Chernarus that had been going on for centuries was key to not only winning the 'hearts and minds' of the population to get them to help you, but to use that knowledge to make decisions in the field and have to deal with orders coming from command that are coming from people who may not fully understand what's really going on.

This all adds up to one thing - those that have played the Harvest Red SP campaign, or at least have read up on it, will most likely have a much more immersive experience roaming around Chernarus that those that haven't.

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Here's what I'd like to see in the future that incorporates the history of Chernarus (after the real important stuff is taken care of, obviously):

  • Tweaking of the CLE and heli crash spawns - have NATO/UN helis and equipment spawns favor locations that are south of the NWAF, and Soviet helis and equipment favor the more northerly locations. The NWAF and VMC should be a balance of the two. By 'favor,' I only mean that there should be a somewhat higher chance - NOT that locations spawn exclusively one type of gear/crash site. Even though the infection came at least 3-5 years after the 2009 civil war, and that the UN continued to have a presence in the area to support the CDF (Chernarussian Defense Force), it seems logical that the UN/NATO forces would have been more populous in the southwest and southern coastal areas.
     
  • Remove the black Chedaki beret from military spawn areas, make it much more rare, and shift the spawns to civilian houses in the northern third of the map. It makes no sense for them to be just lying about in military bases, as it's from a uniform of a rebel force that was defeated years ago, and as such would be something that would have been kept only by sympathizers and rarely, if ever, been worn in public. 
     
  • Put some sort of small monument and area of disturbed ground to mark the location of the mass graves south of Pusta (another Chedaki war crime site). Even if the bodies were dug up and given a proper burial after the 2009 conflict, there should be some small memorial or at the very least, evidence of a large patch of disturbed ground. Same goes for a Kumryna.
     
  • Add the remains of the Manhattan FOB on the top of Klen mountain. I know there is a small wooden marker there currently, but it would be nice to see a bit more there, even if it's just a few wrecked vehicles and a couple busted up HESCO bastions. No need for item spawns, just the remains of the FOB.
     
  • Add a few more burned out civilian building ruins throughout the northern third of the map. While  the NATO strikes would have focused on strictly military locations, the overall rarity of ruined civilian buildings from that conflict in that area seems a bit odd.
     
  • And finally, the toughest one to get right - a few scattered remnants of Chedaki and even NAPA rebel camps deep in the woods or other out of the way areas. They shouldn't be anything fancy, or spawn loot in general, but later on when buried caches are in the game, I could see having one of them spawn a hard to detect buried stash at one of them. It should only spawn rarely, perhaps once a week at one of these camps selected randomly. The cache shouldn't be OP, and most of its contents in damaged condition or worse (having been buried for so long and probably not all that well protected), but for those that get lucky and/or desperate, they may provide a serviceable SKS or AK rifle, some ammo (mostly ruined), clothing, and a mag or two, but nothing that you'd want to hang on to for an extended period of time.
     

One last thing - I'm in the process of writing up a series of 6-8 longform articles on Chernarus' pre-infection history that's aimed at exploring the backstory of certain locations and items one finds in DayZ to give players who may not be aware of Chernarus' history a bit more context and significance. I'm trying to keep it as canon as possible and avoid straying into fan fiction territory, and tying together all the info I can from various places on the web, from the Harvest Red mission files itself, and hopefully a little extra info from those who worked on the Harvest Red campaign. It will take some time to complete, but perhaps in a few months, I'll have it ready to share with you all.

Edited by chambersenator
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