Bandits

[ryan__mc__@hotmail.co.uk 131]

Ok so Im all for letting players kill who and what they want at anytime ...Brilliant part of the game :) but you get all these whiners comming here to make suggestions on how they should be punished/disadvanatged for killing other players ...but iv yet to see a good idea that would be realistic...but at the same time its hard to come up with good ideas for this kind of thing as it is a game and people should play how they like.

Anyways how about a "word of mouth" feature..word of mouth generates a description (think of it as if you have already been told the description before you spawned) of player(bandits) that are going around killing people and this player has been described then his description passed to others through word of mouth. This should only affect start of the game during gathering/looting and everything where you would probly only usually have a pistle or hatchet. From what i can see as this feature should only work at close distance and will not effect ranged gameplay as the player would be too hard to indentify using the discription (word of mouth) from long distance.

Word of mouth will shown on the debug monitor and will change between trustworthy to untrustworthy depending on the player that is being looked at during the time. These two will be calculated by the overall murders a player has commited during the full amount of time spent on the game. If the player(Murderer) is close to you and you look towards him ...your debug monitor will change to show the appropriate data.

Sorry if i explained this poorly but im tired :P

Now ofc I expect people to like or dislike the idea. But im Pro PvP also know that something should be done to help surviviours determine if players are trustworthy or not so that they can approach them and begin there coop.

Also this Word of mounth feature would only calculate murders from the point it is introduced ...so players that have been going around murdering others because they ( wanted to play with people but couldnt trust them so instead killed them ) can "start over".

Post your thoughts guys ...just wanna see what you think of this and try to look at it from bandit and survivious pov.

Edited July 19, 2012 by Massicor

[Dancing.Russian.Man 1631]

There's already a word-of-mouth system.

It works like this;

- You get killed.

- You get on the forums.

- You make a topic, whining about losing your gear.

- You name the person who killed you.

[DZR_Mikhail 2424]

At first when I was reading your idea I thought it's very interesting, but then you mentioned some calculationg murders stuff, then shown at debug monitor, and finally determine the players trustworthiness... And it all faded. I understand what you mean, and I really agree with you on the point, that informational layer in the game is missing. But you idea hints on this but develops some really unimmersive mechanics.

If you think logically and may be real-lifestically :) Then you can understand, that a word of mouth among people in real life will never get you any debug monitor, any certain hints on every person you meet in your life. Word of mouth is a descriptive narrative process. So imagine one guy witnessed some other guy killing a survivor. Then, in real life, he would go to his community\group and in terrified voice describe all that he saw. This will be something like: "I saw one guy in the noon, near Mogilevka. He was wearing dirty jeans, and a black jacket. He also had these long dirty hair and a blue cap with some letter on it. He just crawled to one unarmed survivor at the shop and crushed his scull with a crowbar. He took anly beans and with a grin and laugh he joyfully marched into the woods. Holy Jesus, that was terrifying. I would advice you to run if you see him or kill this bastard on sight."

You now undesrtand the problem. This is factually (informational layer) and descriptively (visual layer) full story. But in DayZ, there's no visual layer. Everyone's alike, no customization. And if you add a tag or nameplate for this feature only, just because you need to compensate the descriptive aspect, this will influence all the game at once and break the immersion. It's not about the realism, it's about immersion. You don't have nameplates in real life. You can only be 80% sure about the strangers name if you check his passport, but 20% of people around may have fake ids. So anonymous relation to the point of random stranger encounter without interaction must remain in the game.

What we really need badly is to introduce something to develop the informational layer in the game. One tiny bit of informational layer is present already. It's some 1% or even 0.5% of what I expect in future. This feature is the one which allows you to check the corpse and know it's owner's name and the cause of death. This is so tiny subtle thingie, but it's totally awesome. One of my favourite features in DayZ :) This breaks the total informational vacuum in the game. You can know your enemy profile name after a firefight, you can know some poor soul's name if you stumble upon a corpse in the wilderness or elsewhere.

But it's too little. I know forums are full of good and bad ideas which were inspired by the feel that the game lack informational layer. These features are about naming tents, having paperbooks\notepads\journal where one writes everything he wants and can share it with others or it can be found after his death. Another interesting feature I saw yesterday was about introducing of players to eachother. If one player clicks "intorduce" action when looking at other player, and other player makes the same action, then these two players are now acquainted and have some visual hint on the screen to know for sure it's your introduced friend. For example, you can see his nameplate from a distance when face can be distinguished. let's say 30m then it fades. Or in bunoculars or scopes the same when zoomed to that amount. Consider this as a known face of another player. Such feature will boost up the game so enormously, that it will immediately gain another life for both PvP and survival. DayZ will finally breathe in the social aspect, which is totally ignored atm. This feature is balanced to contribute gameplay and won't allow cheating at this, because you will not be able to "remember a face" of a player who is not willing to share it with you. He just doesn't click "introduce" and nameplates never appear. This is only "full duplex", two way, mutual decision and mechanics. So anonymous will stay anonymous, and thoe who need friends, will have them. If you die, your memory, of course erased and you know noone.

How do yo ulike it?

P.s. Sorry for stealing topic with my own ideas, but I can't help it :) I'm so impressed with the game :)

Edited July 19, 2012 by -=PA=-Mikhail

[ryan__mc__@hotmail.co.uk 131]

P.s. Sorry for stealing topic with my own ideas, but I can't help it :) I'm so impressed with the game :)

Your not stealing the topic and your view is wellcomed....As you will know its hard to explain how to add a feature that is based on realism to a mod...not only that but you need to add it to a mod and not totally mess up gameplay and as the mod is restricted to what the engine can do and what servers can do then there must be a line ...this line is where to compromise realism for gameplay and what can be done to minimize the compromize. Thats why I said that from when players spawn ..they will already have received the "description" of players (bandits) that have been going around killing other players. This description is based on information of what the person is wearing and looks like...and ofc as this is a game and only has certain models( unlike real life ) this is where another line is drawn ...the game will have to give you a description..and you will receive this description in the form of " trustworthy/untrustworthy" in the debug monitor ...ofc there is not debug monitor in real life ...but thats just another line where compromize comes in from realism to gameplay.

I hope everyone understands what im talking about ...the game doesnt need visuals for this feature to work ...it can fake that it has took the visuals from a player(bandit) and then you recive the visual/description upon spawning :P

Edited July 19, 2012 by Massicor

[Death Incarnate 1]

+1

[ryan__mc__@hotmail.co.uk 131]

Anyone that reads this and likes/dislikes the idea ..can you tell me why please...Need feedback so we can come up with more refined ideas.

Where in Alpha and this is where stuff like this should be added :) Then refined in Beta ..You know the script :P

Edited July 19, 2012 by Massicor