Playing with friends = good for the community?

[bad_mojo (DayZ) 1204]

Hear me out.

DayZ is set in a zombie apocalypse. In a place where you've washed up on shore, with basically nothing, no civilization, no safe zone, no link to the outside world(if there is one left), and no communication besides yelling. The game attempts to put you in the worst possible scenario.

Yet, we can all just alt-tab and arrange a meeting with friends. Not even that, most people circumvent the in-game voice chat, by using their own 3rd party voice software. Not only does this make them silent in-game, but they can now communicate across distances.

Another thing to consider is that groups of friends with ties outside the game have already established a "team". People not part of their "team" will have a harder time gaining their trust. I'm sure a good number of groups will just kill anyone not on their chat server.

Of course there are positive aspects of playing with friends. Obviously it's more fun to share the experience with people you've bonded with in the past. You will value their lives more than someone you just met. It's obviously easier when you can lean on stronger players for support. Yet, in my mind these positives are actually negatives when it comes to the community.

Playing with friends from early on will warp your image of the DayZ world. The game isn't supposed to be coop fun time with friends. When that "coop fun time" happens and people have a lot of fun doing it. but then, DayZ creeps in and for example, a zombie breaks your legs and you die and have to walk for an hour to meet up with your group. People rage about zombies breaking their legs. They want this "coop funtime" and not DayZ. They want to run around the DayZ world, without experiencing the apocalypse part. They want to bring their friends and family along to the end of the world.

So, I'm wondering if I'm a minority here. Does anyone else think that the game would benefit from a mechanic that made it very difficult to group up with other people that you know from outside the game?

(Please don't just reply with "it would be boring" because nobody can honestly say how it would be, because that community doesn't exist.)

[Dr. Toros 8]

It's more like "there's so many players, hopping from server to server, that everyone you don't know in real life you're not likely to ever meet again", which means that shooting someone and taking their stuff if they aren't a real-life buddy is by far the best strategy. Avoiding them is better if you can't kill them, and being friendly is only going to be a losing strategy.

[bad_mojo (DayZ) 1204]

It's more like "there's so many players' date=' hopping from server to server, that everyone you don't know in real life you're not likely to ever meet again", which means that shooting someone and taking their stuff if they aren't a real-life buddy is by far the best strategy. Avoiding them is better if you can't kill them, and being friendly is only going to be a losing strategy.

[/quote']

You must have misunderstood my post, I'm asking if it would be better if people from real life couldn't meet up in-game.

What is safe or stupid to do in what we currently have is irrelevant to the discussion.

[Daddy'o 4]

I fully understand what you're saying and I would agree that it would be a healthy thing for the community of DayZ as a whole if there were no option to use external communication or have mates play as mates.

You would have to band together and form ties from people you encounter. Make do with what you have.

Positive side is pvp would be lessened, and a more realistic scenario would emerge.

However the negative impact would outweigh the positive side, which is the pain obvious thing. People prefer to play with their mates. Have fun playing an enjoyable game with your buds and have a good laugh you can talk about later in real life.

Without being able to do this, peoples interest to the game overall would degrade much faster. I'm personally at one month mark now I think and my interest is waning pretty fast. All my mates have already stopped playing, irl ones as well as the ones I met in-game. I would only assume that would happen even faster if we couldn't play together reliably.

[Dr. Toros 8]

It's more like "there's so many players' date=' hopping from server to server, that everyone you don't know in real life you're not likely to ever meet again", which means that shooting someone and taking their stuff if they aren't a real-life buddy is by far the best strategy. Avoiding them is better if you can't kill them, and being friendly is only going to be a losing strategy.

[/quote']

You must have misunderstood my post, I'm asking if it would be better if people from real life couldn't meet up in-game.

What is safe or stupid to do in what we currently have is irrelevant to the discussion.

The issue isn't that people are coordinating with friends, which is completely impossible to stop, by the way, it's that finding actual friendly players is impossible due to the game mechanics and high player turnover from server to server, which means coordinating through external means is 1) the best way to survive and 2) the only way to group.

[bad_mojo (DayZ) 1204]

It's more like "there's so many players' date=' hopping from server to server, that everyone you don't know in real life you're not likely to ever meet again", which means that shooting someone and taking their stuff if they aren't a real-life buddy is by far the best strategy. Avoiding them is better if you can't kill them, and being friendly is only going to be a losing strategy.

[/quote']

You must have misunderstood my post, I'm asking if it would be better if people from real life couldn't meet up in-game.

What is safe or stupid to do in what we currently have is irrelevant to the discussion.

The issue isn't that people are coordinating with friends, which is completely impossible to stop, by the way, it's that finding actual friendly players is impossible due to the game mechanics and high player turnover from server to server, which means coordinating through external means is 1) the best way to survive and 2) the only way to group.

Nothing is impossible to stop. But, that's not the discussion here.

I don't know how many times I need to stress this.... what happens in the current system cannot be carried over to a hypothetical system that doesn't exist.

You say people aren't friendly. That's great, it's true. But, it cannot be assumed that if we removed outside groups form the game, it would remain the same. It might, it might not. Assuming it would is just that, an assumption.

I understand what you're saying, it's just irrelevant.

---

People prefer to play with their mates. Have fun playing an enjoyable game with your buds and have a good laugh you can talk about later in real life.

Yeah, that's the biggest obstacle to removing these elements. I personally thought that DayZ would more actively prevent me from playing with friends. It's one of the things that drew me towards the mod in the first place.(people on another forum complaining about the lack of squad system) Almost every game on the market today has extensive mechanics built in to support playing with friends, I wanted to try something different.

I haven't teamed up with people outside of DayZ so far, and I've really enjoyed it. But I've also been affected by outside groups, despite my stance on them. The community is already too corrupt, everyone is infected.

[Dr. Toros 8]

It's more like "there's so many players' date=' hopping from server to server, that everyone you don't know in real life you're not likely to ever meet again", which means that shooting someone and taking their stuff if they aren't a real-life buddy is by far the best strategy. Avoiding them is better if you can't kill them, and being friendly is only going to be a losing strategy.

[/quote']

You must have misunderstood my post, I'm asking if it would be better if people from real life couldn't meet up in-game.

What is safe or stupid to do in what we currently have is irrelevant to the discussion.

The issue isn't that people are coordinating with friends, which is completely impossible to stop, by the way, it's that finding actual friendly players is impossible due to the game mechanics and high player turnover from server to server, which means coordinating through external means is 1) the best way to survive and 2) the only way to group.

Nothing is impossible to stop. But, that's not the discussion here.

I don't know how many times I need to stress this.... what happens in the current system cannot be carried over to a hypothetical system that doesn't exist.

You say people aren't friendly. That's great, it's true. But, it cannot be assumed that if we removed outside groups form the game, it would remain the same. It might, it might not. Assuming it would is just that, an assumption.

I understand what you're saying, it's just irrelevant.

Actually, people coordinating in game is completely impossible to stop. There are too many ways to communicate and coordinate.

The only way to prevent external programs from working is by making day z actively try to shut them down, which would make many antivirus programs flare up. Even then, how many people have smartphones that can do the same damn thing, and wouldn't even be detectable?

You can't remove outside groups, so discussing the ramifications is a moot point. HOWEVER, even if we're talking in hypothetical scenarios, there's still no reason to work with strangers instead of killing them or avoiding them. There's more risk for less reward.

Increasing the reward for working with others is the only way things are going to change. There are a number of actually possible ways to do this, that don't involve an impossible suggestion like "prevent people from grouping using other means".

Even if we could do this, how would it possibly make things better?

[Hawk24 94]

People rage about zombies breaking their legs. They want this "coop funtime"

What an amazingly moronic logic

People rage about zombies breaking their legs because in any other version you could sustain a decent amount of hits before actually breaking them

In 1.7.1.5 even on full blood a single zombie hit can break them, which makes no sense at all

OMG IT'S TOTALLY RELATED TO COOP FUN TIME THEY ARE JUST MAD BECAUSE THEY CAN'T HAVE COOP FUN TIME

Oh and good luck trying to get DayZ to actively prevent people from communicating and coordinating

Might as well write a virus that shuts down every 3rd party VOIP active on the system....same thing

I personally thought that DayZ would more actively prevent me from playing with friends

You mean like accidentally pulling the trigger while hovering your crosshair over a known friend that you're currently talking to over Skype?

Or maybe throwing a random grenade into the group of people that you were just talking to over Teamspeak

We have to prevent those people from playing together after all!!!

Almost every game on the market today has extensive mechanics built in to support playing with friends, I wanted to try something different.

So does DayZ have mechanics to ACTIVELY support playing with friends?

Any squad spawn mechanic that we missed?

Map indicators showing you the position of your friends?

Compass and map for free at the beginning?

Free taxi ride to your friends camp?

No? Oh....ok

What you're saying makes no bloody sense AT ALL

[Dr. Toros 8]

People rage about zombies breaking their legs. They want this "coop funtime"

What an amazingly moronic logic

People rage about zombies breaking their legs because in any other version you could sustain a decent amount of hits before actually breaking them

In 1.7.1.5 even on full blood a single zombie hit can break them' date=' which makes no sense at all

OMG IT'S TOTALLY RELATED TO COOP FUN TIME THEY ARE JUST MAD BECAUSE THEY CAN'T HAVE COOP FUN TIME

Bloody moron....oh and good luck trying to get DayZ to actively prevent people from communicating and coordinating

Might as well write a virus that shuts down every 3rd party VOIP active on the system....same thing

Almost every game on the market today has extensive mechanics built in to support playing with friends, I wanted to try something different.

So does DayZ have mechanics to ACTIVELY support playing with friends?

What you're saying makes no sense

I'm not sure which part of the current leg breaking mechanic I like less, the ease at which pathetic zombie slaps accomplishes it or that morphine would permanently fix it.

Most of the time, breaking your leg is just another way to die.

[bad_mojo (DayZ) 1204]

Actually' date=' people coordinating in game is completely impossible to stop. There are too many ways to communicate and coordinate.

The only way to prevent external programs from working is by making day z actively try to shut them down, which would make many antivirus programs flare up. Even then, how many people have smartphones that can do the same damn thing, and wouldn't even be detectable?

You can't remove outside groups, so discussing the ramifications is a moot point. HOWEVER, even if we're talking in hypothetical scenarios, there's still no reason to work with strangers instead of killing them or avoiding them. There's more risk for less reward.

Increasing the reward for working with others is the only way things are going to change. There are a number of actually possible ways to do this, that don't involve an impossible suggestion like "prevent people from grouping using other means".

Even if we could do this, how would it possibly make things better?

[/quote']

Just off the top of my head. When DayZ goes to a standalone version, it could be incorporated to have 3 server options. Regular, Vet, Expert. When you select one of them you are put on a random server that fits that criteria and has a good ping. You would have no indication of which server you are on and would be sent back to that server(or another in a very short list) when reconnecting. So no server hopping to find each other would be possible.

So.. while you can still talk to each other via 3rd party voice software, coordinating a meetup would be next to impossible. Sure you could both go to Cherno and hope your on the same server, but if you aren't then what?

Wouldn't that system not effectively remove grouping up outside the game?

Why would this benefit the game/community? Well, without that tether to your friends you would be put in a more vulnerable position. You would be more willing to work with people you see because you would become lonely and would crave human contact.

Firefights would be more chaotic, there wouldn't be that safety line of communication, if you partner dies, you can't ask him where he was shot from or what happened. They're dead to you.

Basically it would create a community. People would have to create relationships in the game and you would inevitable have to work with people you usually wouldn't. When you watch a TV show like The Walking Dead, the different characters don't always get along, because they're so different. In the normal world, those people would avoid each other, in a zombie apocalypse, they have no choice, those are the people they are stuck with. Of course there is that option to kill them. Which always makes things interesting.

[Hawk24 94]

Basically it would create a community

LMAO, you are actually believing the crap that you are saying

No point in further discussing with someone believing in such a ridiculously retarded idea

Move along people, nothing to see here

[bad_mojo (DayZ) 1204]

People rage about zombies breaking their legs. They want this "coop funtime"

What an amazingly moronic logic

People rage about zombies breaking their legs because in any other version you could sustain a decent amount of hits before actually breaking them

In 1.7.1.5 even on full blood a single zombie hit can break them' date=' which makes no sense at all

OMG IT'S TOTALLY RELATED TO COOP FUN TIME THEY ARE JUST MAD BECAUSE THEY CAN'T HAVE COOP FUN TIME

Oh and good luck trying to get DayZ to actively prevent people from communicating and coordinating

Might as well write a virus that shuts down every 3rd party VOIP active on the system....same thing

I personally thought that DayZ would more actively prevent me from playing with friends

You mean like accidentally pulling the trigger while hovering your crosshair over a known friend that you're currently talking to over Skype?

Or maybe throwing a random grenade into the group of people that you were just talking to over Teamspeak

We have to prevent those people from playing together after all!!!

Almost every game on the market today has extensive mechanics built in to support playing with friends, I wanted to try something different.

So does DayZ have mechanics to ACTIVELY support playing with friends?

Any squad spawn mechanic that we missed?

Map indicators showing you the position of your friends?

Compass and map for free at the beginning?

Free taxi ride to your friends camp?

No? Oh....ok

What you're saying makes no bloody sense AT ALL

Hey, thanks for the post. I welcome all feedback, no matter how insulting.

Yeah, perhaps the broken leg was a bad example, it's just the most talked about bug in the game, so it instantly came to mind. My point was that when a stupid little bug like that kills you, it's more annoying when your tied to a group. You feel like it's your mission to meet up with them again. If they're not playing with their friends, it's the end of the world. If you see other people, avoid or kill them, you've got friends to meet up with.

Not really sure where you are going with the accidental click stuff. Seems like an irrelevant rant.

Notice I said "almost every game"? It's the lack of those mechanics that made me interested in DayZ. I just wish it worked better. We still have server names and server hopping.

---

Basically it would create a community

LMAO' date=' you are actually believing the crap that you are saying

No point in further discussing with someone believing in such a ridiculously retarded idea

Move along people, nothing to see here

[/quote']

Guess what? Some of us actually speak from the heart and believe what we say! It's crazy I know.

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

The game isn't supposed to be coop fun time with friends.

Oh, look. Someone else trying to tell people what the game is supposed to be.

How about you play DayZ the way you want and I play it the way you want and you butt the fuck out of my business. Deal?

[bad_mojo (DayZ) 1204]

The game isn't supposed to be coop fun time with friends.

Oh' date=' look. Someone else trying to tell people what the game is supposed to be.

How about you play DayZ the way you want and I play it the way you want and you butt the fuck out of my business. Deal?

[/quote']

This isn't a thread about telling people how to play. It's about discussing possible game mechanics to further emphasize the apocalypse experience.

You can pull a sentence out of my long post and make it sound however the fuck you want. But, I imagine most people will read it in context and understand. Most people...

[bad_mojo (DayZ) 1204]

I guess i'm part of a minority in this community. :(

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

I guess i'm part of a minority in this community. :(

We're all parts of minorities, bad_mojo.

The beauty of DayZ is that rocket is not trying to take us all and put us into "Group A" or "Group B" and dividing our wants and needs and desires and hopes and dreams into two crude categories that are far too general and limiting to really represent the diversity of the player base.

Embrace it.

You can have your DayZ, I can have mine, and as much as we might both hate it, the mouth-breathing, slack-jawed yokels get to have theirs too. And we all have to figure out how to exist in the same world together. And yes, that gets messy. Really messy.

But maybe it's time for messy? Maybe messy is what we need for a change? Ever since EverQuest said "PvP goes over here and PvE goes over here and RP goes over here and never the twain shall meet" the gaming industry has followed suit.

Surely a game can't exist that does all of those things and more in a single world, right?

Well DayZ is doing it and so far succeeding like gangbusters.

I say lets stand back and see what happens. Calm down. Let the wind fill the sails and see where we end up. Stop worrying so much that maybe it won't be exactly what you expected or maybe just maybe we'll end up adrift forever until we starve and eat each other.

[bad_mojo (DayZ) 1204]

I'm not worried DayZ will not end up how I expect it. I'm surprised that so many people don't see any potential for a system where you can't bring your friends to the apocalypse. I'm surprised people can't see the value of entering a zombie apocalypse alone.

When I saw that Rocket had removed the teamwork aspects of Arma2 I had this picture in my head of being completely alone. Any progress you made in the game, would come from your actions in the game. If you wanted help, you had to go find it. You had to approach people and create a relationship. In reality, DayZ is overwhelmed with people from pre-existing communities using 3rd party voice software, progressing using their previous relationships, prior to even playing the game. For example, if your clan has a group in DayZ, the instant you start the game you have already gotten past one of the biggest parts of the game, socializing.

I understand why people will respond with "Play it how you want, don't worry about other people" except other people are an integral part of playing DayZ. The frame of mind other players are in plays a HUGE role in my(and everyones) game experience. If players have an unrealistic ignorance towards others in the world, it hurts the consistency of the game.

Edited July 12, 2012 by bad_mojo

[Dr. Toros 8]

We're all parts of minorities, bad_mojo.

The beauty of DayZ is that rocket is not trying to take us all and put us into "Group A" or "Group B" and dividing our wants and needs and desires and hopes and dreams into two crude categories that are far too general and limiting to really represent the diversity of the player base.

Embrace it.

You can have your DayZ, I can have mine, and as much as we might both hate it, the mouth-breathing, slack-jawed yokels get to have theirs too. And we all have to figure out how to exist in the same world together. And yes, that gets messy. Really messy.

But maybe it's time for messy? Maybe messy is what we need for a change? Ever since EverQuest said "PvP goes over here and PvE goes over here and RP goes over here and never the twain shall meet" the gaming industry has followed suit.

Surely a game can't exist that does all of those things and more in a single world, right?

Well DayZ is doing it and so far succeeding like gangbusters.

I say lets stand back and see what happens. Calm down. Let the wind fill the sails and see where we end up. Stop worrying so much that maybe it won't be exactly what you expected or maybe just maybe we'll end up adrift forever until we starve and eat each other.

*Yawn*

You really think that Day Z is the pinnacle of player freedom? UO did it 20 years ago, and better than Day Z is doing it now. The only question is how much will day Z improve, if at all.

Just off the top of my head. When DayZ goes to a standalone version, it could be incorporated to have 3 server options. Regular, Vet, Expert. When you select one of them you are put on a random server that fits that criteria and has a good ping. You would have no indication of which server you are on and would be sent back to that server(or another in a very short list) when reconnecting. So no server hopping to find each other would be possible.

So.. while you can still talk to each other via 3rd party voice software, coordinating a meetup would be next to impossible. Sure you could both go to Cherno and hope your on the same server, but if you aren't then what?

Wouldn't that system not effectively remove grouping up outside the game?

Why would this benefit the game/community? Well, without that tether to your friends you would be put in a more vulnerable position. You would be more willing to work with people you see because you would become lonely and would crave human contact.

Firefights would be more chaotic, there wouldn't be that safety line of communication, if you partner dies, you can't ask him where he was shot from or what happened. They're dead to you.

Basically it would create a community. People would have to create relationships in the game and you would inevitable have to work with people you usually wouldn't. When you watch a TV show like The Walking Dead, the different characters don't always get along, because they're so different. In the normal world, those people would avoid each other, in a zombie apocalypse, they have no choice, those are the people they are stuck with. Of course there is that option to kill them. Which always makes things interesting.

That would remove any sense of community. Everyone would be a stranger, every time, making it even more a FFA deathmatch.

Edited July 12, 2012 by Dr. Toros

[bad_mojo (DayZ) 1204]

*Yawn*

You really think that Day Z is the pinnacle of player freedom? UO did it 20 years ago, and better than Day Z is doing it now. The only question is how much will day Z improve, if at all.

That would remove any sense of community. Everyone would be a stranger, every time, making it even more a FFA deathmatch.

It would and it wouldn't. If you just hid your servers name it would mean everyone is a stranger. But if they hid the server name and allowed for connections to be made inside the game, it would create a community.

What I mean is that when you physically stand next to someone in the game, you should be able to "add as friend" or something along those lines. He would be added to your contacts and you would be able to join his server. Of course, you could still search for your friends and maybe eventually find them, but it would be easier to make new friends and group up with them.

Right now, it's easier to make friends outside of DayZ than it is inside DayZ, that's a problem in my eyes.

Edited July 12, 2012 by bad_mojo

[bad_mojo (DayZ) 1204]

oops! double post, please delete

Edited July 12, 2012 by bad_mojo

[Sixteen18 15]

And here I thought it was impossible to suggest something worse than PVP and PVE servers. This game is meant to be played with a group, if you want to be a solo hero and get shot in the back all the time it's your call.

[jovial 17]

Hear me out.

DayZ is set in a zombie apocalypse. In a place where you've washed up on shore, with basically nothing, no civilization, no safe zone, no link to the outside world(if there is one left), and no communication besides yelling. The game attempts to put you in the worst possible scenario.

Yet, we can all just alt-tab and arrange a meeting with friends. Not even that, most people circumvent the in-game voice chat, by using their own 3rd party voice software. Not only does this make them silent in-game, but they can now communicate across distances.

Another thing to consider is that groups of friends with ties outside the game have already established a "team". People not part of their "team" will have a harder time gaining their trust. I'm sure a good number of groups will just kill anyone not on their chat server.

Of course there are positive aspects of playing with friends. Obviously it's more fun to share the experience with people you've bonded with in the past. You will value their lives more than someone you just met. It's obviously easier when you can lean on stronger players for support. Yet, in my mind these positives are actually negatives when it comes to the community.

Playing with friends from early on will warp your image of the DayZ world. The game isn't supposed to be coop fun time with friends. When that "coop fun time" happens and people have a lot of fun doing it. but then, DayZ creeps in and for example, a zombie breaks your legs and you die and have to walk for an hour to meet up with your group. People rage about zombies breaking their legs. They want this "coop funtime" and not DayZ. They want to run around the DayZ world, without experiencing the apocalypse part. They want to bring their friends and family along to the end of the world.

So, I'm wondering if I'm a minority here. Does anyone else think that the game would benefit from a mechanic that made it very difficult to group up with other people that you know from outside the game?

(Please don't just reply with "it would be boring" because nobody can honestly say how it would be, because that community doesn't exist.)

Do you just have no friends, or have never been in a clan in your life or something? Or are you just some ultra hardcore roleplayer type? In either case, yes, you are in the minority with this suggestion.

Also, forget it. This isn't a game catered for the lone wolf players. You can solo it, that's your choice. But whatever endgame there will be will be driven by groups and clans. Just accept it, adapt to it, and join a clan if you can. The nature of the game of course makes you highly suspicious of new people, my own clan, we are actually a gaming community, would actually be hesitant to recruit anyone into our group who isn't already a part of our community.

With more clan and group oriented content coming, base building, electricity, etc, you can expect people will let down their guards some though, because people will actually want to group up and form a bond to accomplish something real in the game, instead of setting up ambushes or backstabbing.

Edited July 12, 2012 by jovial

[Dingus (DayZ) 429]

I disagree. Such a system would alienate people who could easily be an asset to the community.

I am also bias. I play with IRL friends over skype or TS all the time.

[Macenzie 79]

Get some friends mate

[bad_mojo (DayZ) 1204]

Okay, guess it's unclear why I think this will help DayZ.

No, I don't want to lone wolf. Yes, I like playing in groups. Is that clear enough?

I think the OUTSIDE groups coming into DayZ is the problem. I think people should group up with other survivors they encounter. I think it hurts the DayZ community when people like Jovials clan are "hesitant to recruit anyone who isn't already part of their community".