Make the infected more 'human' and more 'zombie', adding depth and immersion

[L0G!N (DayZ) 149]

I realy miss a backstory to the world i am in, and that somewhat distances me from the game.

More human

I think it would be realy cool if Zed's would drop various items that give them some humanity back, humanity from a time b4 though, but still. If you shot a zombie and he carries a photo of a wife and kids, all of sudden the whole situation will become more emotional. As this guy isn't just a zed to be shot for a chance on loot, this was a person with a life and something awefull happened to him (obviously). Or perhaps a letter to a loved one, or a checklist for groceries, etc etc...

The same thing could happen in regards to normal drop locations, perhaps notes of people that seen there loved one go from normal to infected and written about it. And perhaps this person knows (s)he is infected themselves, and keep writing untill loosing it...

Perhaps messages from survivors like ourselves could be added as well, on infected as well as in spawnpoints. Finding a note that indicates that this infected is actually a survivor like yourself shows you something about what's likely to happen to you.

All these things can give more depth to the world and inform the player both of what this world was about b4 this horrible event, basically 'normal', and how it turned into a zombie invested world... a background like this would give more immersion and connection to the world and with that stronger/easier access to emotions.

More Zombie

Make use of some zombie movie/book etc inspiration to add a bit more gore to the zombies. The easiest i can think off is to add 'chewed on feet', chunk of arm or legg, etc to the drops. To also makes these more usefull, perhaps one can use them as 'bait' in beartraps...

I'm fairly sure there are more ways to add a more 'gruwelsome' flavor to zombies, again, adding these kinds of things in will add a subtle gore element to zombies that in turn plays with emotions. Showing what infected may do when they actually catch you...

Both these will deepen the experience by giving the world more substance and more background, giving more emotional connection to the world we spawned into, both it's past and it's present... And while this tends to be something to add in for beta or even final stage, seeing it's fairly simple to add a bunch of items that accomplish this can give this depth right now. And seeing it's fairly simple it can also be a fun thing to do to mix in between the bugfixing and hard new features...

Edited July 11, 2012 by L0GIN

[thedog88 180]

the first part, i totally agree. being able to find "unneeded" items on player and zed bodies would be really cool. like he said, coming across a zed that is carrying a watch, a can of beans and a note from his daughter would give you that "damn..." effect every now and then. also if players could pickup a notepad/book in which they can write their experiences (MSO has something like this). when they get killed another player can pick it up and read it. so for example a player could shoot another player and read about him. imagine how harmful this could be if a player was to write about a camp he created, now the killer has intel on a location he needs to raid.

as for the "more zombie" part, i believe rocket was trying to make them sort of like i am legend "zombies" but not quite. they arent really tore up in that movie, just lost pigmentation in their skin and slightly mutated but no flesh ripped out and blood dripping and dropping. from what i gather, the zombies in dayz are smarter than we expect them to be. they might wander around aimlessly at times but they are emotionless killing machines and their only thought is kill. might not be a bad idea, but i think if there would be more variety of the current ones, that would do it for me :)

[L0G!N (DayZ) 149]

Well the ones in 'I am legend' still eat humans, that's their whole thing, so one carrying around a snack from a previous kill would give them some intelligence, aka. don't eat everything you need, take some stuff with you if you can. Even monkeys in the wild do this :) there is even a theory that that promted upright walking with a human species, aka. if you walk upright you can carry things in your hands ...

[ChiefMasterKush 321]

This sounds like something I can get behind. Some of these suggestions I'm sure Rocket would like to and will implement, some of which I am sure he can not due to limitations.

I would love to crawl up to a town and find a hopper munching on a corpse.

Edited July 12, 2012 by ChiefMasterKush