Ecological support for improved game experience

[Mr. Darkness 1]

Hello!

My name is Mikhail, I'm a student at the ecological faculty of People's Friendship University of Russia, and I've been studying ecology for 3 years so far. I've been following DayZ for quite some time, until the developers had gone into working on the engine. I'm glad to see that the game is getting more and more attention again!
Once I've seen the news about the improvement of the forest, I pumped and now I'm really looking to help the DayZ Dev team by suggesting additional changes for the looks of the forest to make them more believable and realistic, also giving the player some actual idea of how some of the plants grow depending on the water sources, along with some plants that may be painful or even dangerous for the human that gets into them. And given the fact, that I live in the same ecosystem as Chernarus, I can provide quite a good amount of info on the plantlife.

By the way, I'm also a developer at two different teams that work on Source Engine mods called "Lambda Wars" (already released) and "Boreal Alymph", and have a very large experience in videogame development. In both of them I have experience working as a Game Designer, just as well as Level Designer, Particle Effect artist, and graphical designer. This is just an additional portion of info about myself. Tho here and now I'd like to share some portion of my knowledge in ecology.

Just as an example, I'd gladly provide my knowledge about a plant Alnus Glutinosa (Black alder), it's a tree that grows in places where you're guaranteed to find large portions of sweet water, such as lakes and rivers. Thus, instead of having birch trees (Betula) that commonly grow in various places, including swamps (In reality they stand with broken tops, while some of them keep growing - that's how you can tell there's a swamp), you could place quite a good number of black alders in these places, hinting the player that he's found a place where he can refill his canteens.

Speaking of birch trees, actually. Did you know you can harvest "birch juice"? It's a liquid that comes from the roots of the plant after the winter season, that you can harvest during the spring season and holds vitamins B6 and B12 in it, was very common in the USSR (and it actually tastes good). Using that knowledge, you could add another method of survival :).

I really think that DayZ could use an ecologist, such as myself, to help develop the game with some (additional) scientific support.

That's all I have to say. Hope my help would be quite useful. :)

 

Edited August 8, 2018 by Mr. Darkness

[liquidcactus 719]

Not a bad idea at all but I'm sure the devs arent very fussed. Having stuff like what you explained is a cool idea tho. The more little ideas place together like this is what gives the game a great variety in the end. I would love to get me some "birch juice" I really like having different juices in 7 days to die is a good example.

[Seky1002 7]

Really good idea, because DayZ is in this phase quiet BORING and need some new futures, but this have one BIG problem. This problem is from Dev's site: Bohemia is not hearing community. 

 

Sorry for mistakes.

Edited August 8, 2018 by Seky1002

[Sqeezorz 839]

A good suggestion. Unfortunately, this topic was actually set to zero by the last sentence of my previous speaker.

[Mr. Darkness 1]

Are you trying to say they don't read the forums at all, nor respond?
It might be possible that they simply ignore some things because they have their own roadmap planned at this point, which I wouldn't blame them for. The DayZ team isn't so big, thus they wouldn't be able to handle it all at once. But still, I would appreciate it if they would at least read it. I try to read my community stuff, but I hardly ever respond to suggestions that have been around for quite some time already, for example. Thus, I can relate if that's the case.

 

Besides, let's be honest, most of the suggestions around are "I don't like this, please don't add this", instead of at least leaving a good argument as to why one or the other thing would be good or bad.

Edited August 8, 2018 by Mr. Darkness

[liquidcactus 719]

1 hour ago, Mr. Darkness said:

Besides, let's be honest, most of the suggestions around are "I don't like this, please don't add this", instead of at least leaving a good argument as to why one or the other thing would be good or bad.

Yes indeed. For the most part, these forums have been around for a long time now so i think most of the "good/original" suggestions have all been said !

[Sqeezorz 839]

@Mr. Darkness

You can rest assured, the forums are read. Not necessarily from the devs themselves, but rather from the community managers / moderators. These then pass on special things to the devs if they are important / new / specific or relevant.

If you not expect any feedback from Dev's side, then everything is fine. No matter what kind of idea it is.

ADD: 

If your idea really gets big ears in the dev team and you want to know more about an idea or concept, then you will find a PM in your mailbox and not as an answer in the forum.

Edited August 8, 2018 by Sqeezorz

[Mr. Darkness 1]

On 08.08.2018 at 5:58 PM, Sqeezorz said:

@Mr. Darkness

You can rest assured, the forums are read. Not necessarily from the devs themselves, but rather from the community managers / moderators. These then pass on special things to the devs if they are important / new / specific or relevant.

If you not expect any feedback from Dev's side, then everything is fine. No matter what kind of idea it is.

ADD: 

If your idea really gets big ears in the dev team and you want to know more about an idea or concept, then you will find a PM in your mailbox and not as an answer in the forum.

Fair enough. Yeah, I don't exactly expect devs to respond, I'm familiar with how the development flow goes. We get suggestions for our game as well, but most of them have either been already suggested or are complicated. Sometimes it's hard to read big posts like mine, which I didn't make simple for reading, or the suggestion might be just too big or hard to implement. Or unnecessary.

If the devs won't accept it, I'll be fine with that too. But I only think of not something that would be cool for me to play with, but what would add up greatly for all the players and in terms of game design in general.

That's all really :)

Edited August 14, 2018 by Mr. Darkness