My Humble Suggestions

[OPrey 2]

Just like many of you I have been dreaming of an ultra realistic zombie survival game. I feel though, as a game it lacks something that is needed to keep people playing this game for years to come. its still in Alpha/beta and I am sure it will improve over time. Here are a few suggestions I think will help.

1) More content.

This may be a limitation of the Arma 2 engine but it would be awesome to have more buildings to enter, more towns to explore, more roads and more variety other then acres upon acres of trees. I think the total loot of the server should not be effected though just harder to find which brings me to my next point.

2) Random Loot

Make more spawn locations in the increased buildings but keep the same amount of total loot spawns. Don't have pre determined buildings for loot and don't make certain awesome loot only spawn in certain predictable areas. This would reward exploration and more players would constantly be moving all over the map increasing player encounters.

3) Don't share loot and stats across all servers.

let the flaming begin but I feel this would eliminate server hoping, hiding loot in another low populated server etc. If you start on a new server you should start with nothing and your "life" tracked on that specific server. So many times i have heard of players, even my friends, leaving a server jumping on a low pop server and farming awesome loot just to come back to the original high pop server with a sniper rifle, camo, GPS and a whole load of other crap just to camp a town and kill everyone in sight.

4) Add more brush, taller grass in areas, more bushes, thicker forests.

I can spot a tent and players and other objects from 800 meters away without even looking for it no mater where its hidden. If its in my line of sight is sticks out like a sore thumb. I suggest making the brush a little thicker so you can't just look 800 meters into a forest and spot everything. Making the grass and low lying vegetation thicker would also be good.

5) Helicopter crash events.

OK so right now the heli can spawn randomly in a pre determined spot. So people jump from spot to spot farming for good loot. How about making that spot anywhere on the map and also alerting players to its arrival. maybe a caption on the screen "You look up and see a helicopter out of control heading for "name of town". Bam we have a spot where everyone on the server will want to move towards increasing player on player interaction and sightings.

6) Increased Zombie types and activity

Different zombie types, self explanatory and lots of people suggested this already lets move onto the activity part. How about as you move from the coast to the center of the map we increase the zombie spawns. So for all of us who start off at the coast the zombies would be like they are now but once we start heading more inland the zombies start spawning in greater numbers and all over the place wilderness and towns.

7) More players.

I have gone hours upon hours without seeing a single person. It would be cool to rise the minimum slot count to 80-100. I understand you would require a serious server to handle that load especially with the Arma engine but I am sure you could optimize it somehow to help being down server load impact.

8) Make this game a living hell.

Make zombies faster, more of them, more types like i mentioned above. I want to be punished for not having ninja like stealth when i enter the first building. Late game I want to have to work with other people to enter a town guns blazing because of the size or difficulty of the zombie horde in front of me. Which brings me to my next point.

Genius post. Read this after my post had to include it here. http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/20112-the-only-realistic-way-to-prevent-deathmatching-make-dayz-a-living-hell/

9) Force Cooperation

I don't want no silly reward system, no karma none of that crap, if you are a bandit kill all you like i don't care. I want more blood pack type things where you require a second person to assist you to accomplish a task. This would require people to seek each other out for assistance, can you trust them? Will they kill you when your back is turned? This will add to the already suspenseful situations. How about the harder towns inland, which have increased zombie spawns and difficulty would require more then one person to clear. So you would need to seek a friend to help you accomplish a task, who may then stab you in the back and make off with the loot. Ahhh the possibilities.

Already suggested but I think are good.

Log out timer - where your body remains on the server for 1-2 minutes after you disconnect.

Radios - for in game communications across map. We all have team speak but i think being able to talk to a perfect stranger within the game would be cool and may create more player interactions.

The goals of my suggestions are to:

Increase player on player interactions

more content to explore

more dynamic, and spontaneous game play

more player choices

Less loot drop location maps

Less server hoping

Less farming of only a few key areas

These suggestions are just that, suggestions. If you have comments please don't hesitate to list them below.

Edited July 17, 2012 by OPrey

[Bludy 324]

this summaries all i would like to see in the future, and it seems to me really fresh..i was thinking before the line of sight in forest thing..good work!

Edited July 17, 2012 by Bludy

[crimsom 2]

im actually for forcing stats to a individual server or an individual bank of servers. i do see lots and lots of abbuse incomming for server hopping i even see people and companys trying to sell items for servers.... kinda sad.

[Hoogley 13]

Point 5 is interesting. I like the idea of directing player activity via an event of some kind. That said, you do get an emergent version of this to some degree via player action/interaction, anyway.

I think the issue with point 9 is that you're really just rewarding and reinforcing the clan mentality. I mean, why trust someone you don't know, when you can trust someone you do know? It just gives clans the upper edge, which sucks for the individuals. I believe that forcing people who don't know each other to co-op is more difficult than that, as you have to compete with the dual psychology of paranoia and detachment. I say keep the paranoia. You can probably counter the detachment by making death more punishing, but you can't really do that until you work out the hacks and exploits, so ...

Besides, why on earth would we want everyone to be friends? The fear of other survivors is half the fun.

[OPrey 2]

Hey Hoogley

The comment you made about point 9 is interesting. What makes it more fun is the unknown about trusting a complete stranger, always watching your back but both of you bandit or not is put into the situation of completing a task together. The end result could mean you get your head blow off or paranoia gets the best of you so you blow his head off either way it would increase interactions and help create more interesting outcomes. What would be even cooler if you were able to make a friend this way and actually be able to have someone watch your back going up against these clans. By forcing people to try and work together without having rules surrounding it you increase paranoia, cooperation and more interactions (good and bad) and this is really what the experiment is about. What will people do in x situation to avoid y outcome or z disaster.

[Deviant (DayZ) 43]

If all these are already suggested, why are you making another thread about them?

Don't make your own thread. Discuss in the already opened threads.

[OPrey 2]

Deviant,

A few thing here have been suggested but i spent a good 2 hours reading about 10 pages back and didn't find ALOT of these yet.

You make this seem like its 100% old stuff when in fact most of it is new or a new way to do it.