Why make a suggestion at this point?

[deviantdigi 22]

Greetings,

Given this recent interview @ http://www.gamebreaker.tv/pc-games/exclusive-dean-rocket-hall-interview/.

So, we got the current status, priorties and possibilities for the game. Being the updates to now. Lets be realistic. No one asked for bear traps.

[Goldstein (DayZ) 46]

I'd say 50% is community contribution, and 50% is developer.

Hence why people should keep the ideas flowing.

We don't ultimately know the goals of the project though, and a lot of cool stuff has been put in that had a snowballs chance of getting communally suggested. so meh. if it really sucks, it can be removed. were it 100% community it would probably derive into the typical boring crap that society churns out.

Edited July 16, 2012 by Goldstein

[L0G!N (DayZ) 149]

Well, if I watched that interview its fairly clear (to me) that after the 'release' almost all work has gone into scaling up the project to deal with the influx. Rocket basically said that now most of the upscaling is done (and dealing with press etc) he is finally getting some time to reflect on his work a lil bit. Sure we seen some tweaks here and there, and a simple item added (melee weapon, beartrap), but those are just lil additions mainly to see if these things actually work (melee basically being an ultra short range gun with a huge magazine) ... so, i am personally hoping that now the build is somewhat stable, we will see more items added, and i personally hope he can figure out a way to put a 'stamina/endurance/fatigue' of some kind in DayZ (even if this means going to BI and have them put it into Arma2 with a patch). While it may seem a simple thing as just a stand alone feature, it can be the backbone of somany other physical systems he has in there right now, and if weight/strength can be added to items the options grow even more. That would also change the whole zombie situation, i mean, we all know these zombies can run this darned fast because we can (and we can do so for miles and miles on end), this whole situation basically means these zombies 'have to run so darned fast' but their animation isn't tuned for it, which makes them look glitchy and what not. So, if you can only run so fast with 25kilo or so strapped to your back, and you can only run a 100m at top speed, to then get tired. Then the whole situation changes, these zombies all of a sudden won't have to run so damned fast, and if you run for 100m and get tired they may well catch up with you, and if weight plays a part as well, making you run slower (and/or for a shorter distance at top speed), those zombies can be a tad slower (looking better) just because you are likely slower, aslong as they are fairly persistant and keep comming, you are going to shit beans eventually... And this whole physical system (endurance/strength) can also introduce some hidden +1 systems that let a character grow in these aspects while the player plays, loosing more on death and adding to the growth of a character and thus introduce some more 'mid-game' aspects... (aka. get stronger, get more endurance, based upon what you do in the game.)

Another thing is group play, now the whole building bases thing sounds cool and all, but there are already tons of games around that let you do this to some extend, and as rocket prettymuch implied, they won't be able to do anything realy extensive untill they truely go stand alone (w/e that means in regards to the engine, does stand alone mean build DayZ into the Arma2 engine, or even Arma3, or whole other (or even new) engine). But as i see it, there are a great deal of other 'group building' suggestions that could be as easy as adding a few special bags and cutting down inventory and toolbelt slots. That's such an easy fix, and it may or may not work, I don't know, you don't know, neither does Rocket... Nobody realy knows untill the Dev's cut down the space on the inventory and toolbelt, adds some specialized bags, and test it, while it may suck a bit more starting out, perhaps it works wonders for all those people that do have a team going, in that they feel they now need eachother to do all the things they want to do...

Another thing that i am worried about is 'mid-game' gameplay. See the first week or so is all about dieing, and learning where to find your stuff and how to actually get to it. After about 2-3 weeks you know where to go and how to get those items, so then it starts to be about getting some bigger stuff, cars, atv, etc. and if you are with a small group it's likely going to be about staching up so you can totally avoid the whole 'get stuff' bit (just teaming up ONCE with 2 mates, made this very apparent, we were attacked by a lone idiot that saw somebody with an Alicepack and just started shooting that person, sure my mate died, but I killed that dumbo, the two left looted both bodies, my mate just ran back to where we were (by passing the whole get things part), we dispersed what we had amoungst ourselves and moved on. So once we get cracking on some tents and big backpacks (and have 2 more guildies come in), we likely get cracking on getting something bigger... then what? well knowing us we will likely all die in a horrible accident where we try to chace bandit snipers with our car and overrun them, but thats only fun while it lasts... So, there has to be some medium term goal in the game, and i think the easiest way to accomplish this is by 'learning by doing'. Realy going through all the things you can do in the game, determain if it's a thing a player does himself as a person controlling he character (aiming, driving, etc) and the things you should get better at over the course of gameplay, but can not be directly learned by the player behind the keyboard (like f/e reading your heading based upon the shadows on the trees, based somewhat on the time of day) ... and then for these things you can't get better at just by doing them as a player, introduce a hidden +1 system that lets you get better at these things while you play. Which stretches out the 'mid-game' aspect of vehicles a bit, but it also creates a bit of a hurdle to get there, meaning that if you die it takes longer to be realy good at it (medice, hunting, engineering), and if Rocket experiments with these learning by doing methods now, with the systems that are in the game now, it will become easier to implement the same sort of things with things yet to come... these kinds of systems also introduce character growth, and may well foster 'specialisation' within groups and learning by doing is realy the best way to do this without introducing real classes that nobody realy wants...

Another thing is 'item spawns', it's fairly clear that something needs to be done about this, and while i don't know if Rocket meant 'tiers' the way i envision them, but if buildings grow in tier (a tier being a loottable with certain items and certain chances for them to drop) based upon a certain time these buildings are NOT looted. To then have these buildings drop in tier ONCE they are looted. That alone will create a whole different gaming experience, the NWA will be stripped of items and first come first serve, but that also means (as tiers drop) there is less reason to stay there and camp it, unless you want to wait for it to build up again, if done smart though you will HAVE TO MOVE from a spot to survive, because you looted the place dry and you will DIE if you DON'T move... Which will give others atleast the option to hang around the NWA and fight over scraps or camp it out with light weapons untill something better drops. And yes that will mean people will NOT find that AK where they though it would be (as it's there now every single time, and if there is no AK there is another big rifle instead). Something like that would be great to just experiment with in the Mod, before deciding what to do in the actual game...

A new map and more enterable buildings, well this is a bit of a catch22, but it doesn't have to be. Assets (aka buildings) take a LONG time to make, test and optimize. These are likely the most timeconsuming things to do when making a game (model, scale, textures, normalmaps, lighting maps, pathing and making sure a player can actually get in them (without being stuck on a door or fall out somewhere unexpected). This is where i think Rocket and the Dev team need to start looking at the community more! I posted a very workable suggestion for a forum competition that would give players the incentive to create possible content for the game, with Rocket being entirely free to decide what he uses. This can make it actually viable that more 'items'/'assets' get added to the game at a short notice, with little to no investment from current other development targets. Now if DayZ goes stand alone these Assets will eat up most time for sure, (side track: thats why i think a stand alone will likely be on Arma3 so the dev team can work with what there is now -> which will make that competition worth its 'non effort' in gold, while realy give a chance for the whole community to shine, and create a bond with the game even more). Another good source for assets would be for BI to ask all modders that made assets to just 'pluck' them from the mods and add them to the development tools. Same with a map realy, while this takes a bit less time if you have the assets, but DayZ realy needs a new map, more sooner than later, there is quite some 'false' data on things being 'easy' right now because people know their way around so well. While a new loot system (tiers) may change some of that, a new map & new loot system would set everybody back to zero. Giving much better opinions and data!

Medical system, this can and should be extended upon, there are some realy 'unauthentic' systems in there now, that are also realy binairy (broken bones/morphine), as well as certain short commings in 'conditions' (mainly sickness, foodpoisoning, flue, etc) as well as reducing the 'binairy aspect' of some of the work arounds. In a perfect situation there would be atleast 2 ways to deal with something, a quick and easy but hard to attain fix, and a quick and 'medium' but medium to attain fix that in somecases just prolonges your situation but atleast give you the opportunity to keep playing and reach a place where you can get the true fix. I've got about 2 A4 of medical stuff in my head, that i must still write down, some of it has already been suggested or come across in conversation, so it will be more of a compilation of all things medical that COULD be in DayZ.

So yeah, there are reasons to discuss suggestions on multiple topics, and seeing i like suggesting things and talking about them to improve them i will continue to do so. What does strike me though, DayZ as stand alone game worth to pay for in september ?!?!!! sure if the mod is taken ofline and the source code burned so people that want to play 'where it's @ now' will have no other choice but to buy it...

[deviantdigi 22]

My gawd Login! Point taken? Hahaha.

[0only1 4]

Whenever I reach the so called mid game with my mates we suddenly all die from a cheater no matter what :S

So I could never test all these wonderful things you say until they do sth about them first. And thats sad.

Nevertheless you got great points, tho you could have it shorter :P