The Holy Grail - Randomised Terrain

[unclegus 21]

This isn't really a suggestion, but more of an "imagine if this were possible!" kind of idea.

Randomised terrain. Or at least, randomised buildings/loot spawn points. Personally, I find it a bit bullshit that you can spawn, alt-tab and look at an online map and know exactly where you are and where to go to find loot. Of course, randomised terrain/buildings would be server-specific, so swapping between servers would be problematic. But imagine if every time you spawned, you genuinely had no idea where you were or where to go.

[duddbudda 33]

randomised terrain is possible with procedural generation, cf minecraft

is it possible to make a map like chernarus? not without insane amounts of work, best get coding OP

[Markedgun 15]

Impossible for Arma regretfully, possibly if the game went stand alone and they put a load of work into it. Imo I would not suggest this because it would make finding people and loot or anything in fact impossible.

[DemonGroover 8836]

I like but maybe in 2015.

[Togasa 5]

If every server had its own uniquely generated map it would help people find a server and also build a community, but of course this type of thing is a long time away.

[Bribase 251]

I know buggery bollocks all about coding something like this but I have a sneaking suspicion that terrain, pre-generated per server is doable but with some very clever procedural programming. You generate the terrain based on a simple rules like "More hills in the north, less hills further south" ,"Roads leading from cities are main roads, roads from town to town are B roads, they follow valleys and don't pass over hills of a certain angle" , "Higher altitudes are forrested, flat areas are sparse fields".

Towns can be generated in a similar way to zoning laws, with simple rules like "Build a town where two main roads intersect" "no two similar buildings next to each other" "one church and one market per town, military bases are optional". Generative rules like this can create plenty of diversity between maps while keeping terrain familiar and never game breaking.

Minecraft style generative landscapes are not only impossible for Day Z, they are impractical. But per server generated maps are not beyond the realm of possiblity. It's a great deal of work but the payoff would be incredible. One server could become very collaborative and peaceful because their main city generated further North than others; people go there to socialise and barter because they are well equipped by the time they arrive. Another server could be bandit heavy because all of their urban centres are built into natural valleys with sniper positions from every angle. Another town could be a perfect stronghold because it is flat in every direction, bandits don't dare try to take it over. People would have a chance to find features of a map and give them an identity of their own.

Whether this is feasable for a team like Day Z's? I don't know.