THE Firewood thread

[kyriel 45]

I don't want to see this mod get deserted by 95% of the playerbase because of such inconsistencies (and wether someone likes it or not' date=' that's how gamer communities work).

Be careful, VERY careful, the popularity of DayZ may end just as quickly as it began, and we obviously don't want that.

In all seriousness, there NEEDS to be something like a test cluster, servers which get updated constantly with new features and options and allow players to provide constant feedback, it's a god damn MUST.

[/quote']

This is Alpha. We're all testers. This is our purpose. With so much negative feedback I'm sure it will change in some way. People who quit easily, don't realize this is alpha and things will constantly be added and tested and quickly removed if they don't work out. But the point is, we're testing an IDEA. If the idea doesn't work, it's out.

[BibJoeJim 1]

Matches only = short burning fire, enough to cook meat, get a little bit warmer

Matches + firewood = long burning fire, enough to last for a few hours if you needed it to, requires water bottle to put out (by original player only)

It adds a little bit of realism, but not too much. The current system, you may as well make it so that you need 3 weeks to restore a car...

[tunedbeats 0]

Just screw this shit and make it common sense.

Walk into a forest' date=' look at the ground, scroll mousewheel - get option to "collect twigs".

There, fire is done.

For christs sake even Les Stroud (survivorman) made a god damn fire in the middle of a friggin jungle where everything is wet and damp, and it lasted for hours upon hours.

This whole collecting wood bullshit is a stretch.

I don't want to see this mod get deserted by 95% of the playerbase because of such inconsistencies (and wether someone likes it or not, that's how gamer communities work).

Be careful, VERY careful, the popularity of DayZ may end just as quickly as it began, and we obviously don't want that.

In all seriousness, there NEEDS to be something like a test cluster, servers which get updated constantly with new features and options and allow players to provide constant feedback, it's a god damn MUST.

[/quote']

Stop treating this like its beta/release. Its ALPHA ffs.

The fact ALPHA is so popular speaks for itself. Stop being a tool and just give feedback on the features. Its fine to not like features and give feedback on it, heck its cheered upon, but complaining like this and acting like shit is 'fail' and whatnot, come on. If less people complained like this is a MMO during release rocket would not have to weed through 90% of posts complaining about server stability and buggy features that have been reported 1000 times already.

He even states in the freaking OP of the TEMP THREAD that temp is overtuned at the moment and that stuff is too rare.

[Marcuss95 0]

i found a lot of it with general loot.

[-Cdn-Chard 96]

Hey guys,

In general I don't have much of a problem with needing to collect firewood; it's a task that would need to get done in reality. On the other hand, presumably these "survivors" must have a bit of backwoods knowledge; after all, they can handle any weapon they pick up, skin game, administer first-aid and even rebuild helicopters from scrap metal and fly them. Call them "para-military". I don't think these guys would need much in the way of additional gear to get a fire going if they had a match and a knife.

In real life, I'm an avid outdoorsman with 40+ years of experience and can manage to "survive" with only matches and a knife (not comfortably, but survive). In the world of ultralight camping, there's a real debate on the need for anything like a saw or a axe/hatchet, with most of the "hardcore" guys choosing to leave the heavy cutting equipment at home.. When camping, I can easily scrounge up enough firewood for a one or two hour fire using only pieces that I can break by hand or burn through. Add a good survival knife and you're set to deal with almost any firestarting/tending stuation. I personally like a good axe, but I don't need one. I use my knife to process my kindling and can get fires started in the pouring rain.

Possible ideas...

Free Collect Firewood Action

Given the forested nature of Chernarus, firewood should be readily available almost anywhere except the beaches. It only needs to be collected. Maybe everyone could have a free "collect firewood" action/option that puts wood/lumber/construction/whatever into an empty slot, no tools required. Something like the "Make Fireplace" option. It shouldn't be difficult to collect firewood, just an effort to be a little more organized and deliberate. Just don't try to gather firewood wearing a full Alice Pack and no free slots... You shouldn't need an axe or matches to get the option, allowing a group to send some guys out to "collect wood" while the guys with the matches gets the fire going and maintains it. It makes establishing a camp a little more difficult, makes you a little more distracted and gives bad guys a chance to sneak up on you.

Firewood Bundles

If the free firewood option can be done then fires could be more fun... Start a fire with a fireplace and a match. Collect a single bundle for a small fires to cook meat (maybe 4 steaks per bundle), collect several bundles to maintain a sustained fire to restore body temperature or cook more meat, like a whole cow. Having to travel into town to get firewood makes for a good excuse to get killed, but just takes away from the lone survivor story. It may have been the only way the designers had to implement the firewood item, but I'd prefer the "Collect Firewood" option.

Match Counts

Talking about lighting fires, as far as a limited count of matches goes, I think they're tied to a slot in Arma that doesn't track usage like a magazine and I wouldn't want to give up a gear slot for a box of matches. Besides, in reality every home would have matches, zombies that were smokers would have matches.. unlimited usage is fine with me...

Temperature and Shelter

As far as temperature management goes, it would be cool if crawling into a tent could provide "shelter" and restore temperature. Add blankets as new items for extra warmth and you're all set. Tents are fairly rare... Blankets should be everywhere. Does seeking shelter in buildings guard against temperature loss? Could we have an option to build a "bush survival shelter" requiring only a knife. It would be very cool, but then we start moving from a Zombie game to a survivalist simulation.

Conclusion

In my mind's eye, whenever I'm offline, my character is attending to the basic necessities of life, including obtaining basic shelter and rest. I take for granted that they interact with their environment in ways I don't need to control. Taking a piss, wiping their nose, huddling under a tree when it's raining or grabbing some deadfall wood when they know they want to build a fire. These guys are tough... Give them some credit.

Other Thoughts

Finally, a couple of thoughts...

1) Can the "Panic" feature be tied, inversely, to the number of Zombie kills you have? A zero kill newbie should be terrified, but a seasoned pro with 100+ Zombie kills is a cold-hearted walker killing machine simply looking for the next restless corpse to practice on. At least that would make racking up the zombie kills as an objective in an of itself.

2) Arma has a rfile strike animation. I'd really like to see the development team come up with a viable melee option where we can use the rifle strike animation to fight off Walkers, as a last resort when all your ammo is gone. Not very effective, but you might take one with you.

Great game and thanks for the nightmares.....

[Boss_Awesome 0]

Chard' pid='50485' dateline='1337719183']

Hey guys' date='

In general I don't have much of a problem with needing to collect firewood; it's a task that would need to get done in reality. On the other hand, presumably these "survivors" must have a bit of backwoods knowledge; after all, they can handle any weapon they pick up, skin game, administer first-aid and even rebuild helicopters from scrap metal and fly them. Call them "para-military". I don't think these guys would need much in the way of additional gear to get a fire going if they had a match and a knife.

In real life, I'm an avid outdoorsman with 40+ years of experience and can manage to "survive" with only matches and a knife (not comfortably, but survive). In the world of ultralight camping, there's a real debate on the need for anything like a saw or a axe/hatchet, with most of the "hardcore" guys choosing to leave the heavy cutting equipment at home.. When camping, I can easily scrounge up enough firewood for a one or two hour fire using only pieces that I can break by hand or burn through. Add a good survival knife and you're set to deal with almost any firestarting/tending stuation. I personally like a good axe, but I don't need one. I use my knife to process my kindling and can get fires started in the pouring rain.

Possible ideas...

[u']Free Collect Firewood Action

Given the forested nature of Chernarus, firewood should be readily available almost anywhere except the beaches. It only needs to be collected. Maybe everyone could have a free "collect firewood" action/option that puts wood/lumber/construction/whatever into an empty slot, no tools required. Something like the "Make Fireplace" option. It shouldn't be difficult to collect firewood, just an effort to be a little more organized and deliberate. Just don't try to gather firewood wearing a full Alice Pack and no free slots... You shouldn't need an axe or matches to get the option, allowing a group to send some guys out to "collect wood" while the guys with the matches gets the fire going and maintains it. It makes establishing a camp a little more difficult, makes you a little more distracted and gives bad guys a chance to sneak up on you.

Firewood Bundles

If the free firewood option can be done then fires could be more fun... Start a fire with a fireplace and a match. Collect a single bundle for a small fires to cook meat (maybe 4 steaks per bundle), collect several bundles to maintain a sustained fire to restore body temperature or cook more meat, like a whole cow. Having to travel into town to get firewood makes for a good excuse to get killed, but just takes away from the lone survivor story. It may have been the only way the designers had to implement the firewood item, but I'd prefer the "Collect Firewood" option.

Match Counts

Talking about lighting fires, as far as a limited count of matches goes, I think they're tied to a slot in Arma that doesn't track usage like a magazine and I wouldn't want to give up a gear slot for a box of matches. Besides, in reality every home would have matches, zombies that were smokers would have matches.. unlimited usage is fine with me...

Temperature and Shelter

As far as temperature management goes, it would be cool if crawling into a tent could provide "shelter" and restore temperature. Add blankets as new items for extra warmth and you're all set. Tents are fairly rare... Blankets should be everywhere. Does seeking shelter in buildings guard against temperature loss? Could we have an option to build a "bush survival shelter" requiring only a knife. It would be very cool, but then we start moving from a Zombie game to a survivalist simulation.

Conclusion

In my mind's eye, whenever I'm offline, my character is attending to the basic necessities of life, including obtaining basic shelter and rest. I take for granted that they interact with their environment in ways I don't need to control. Taking a piss, wiping their nose, huddling under a tree when it's raining or grabbing some deadfall wood when they know they want to build a fire. These guys are tough... Give them some credit.

Other Thoughts

Finally, a couple of thoughts...

1) Can the "Panic" feature be tied, inversely, to the number of Zombie kills you have? A zero kill newbie should be terrified, but a seasoned pro with 100+ Zombie kills is a cold-hearted walker killing machine simply looking for the next restless corpse to practice on. At least that would make racking up the zombie kills as an objective in an of itself.

2) Arma has a rfile strike animation. I'd really like to see the development team come up with a viable melee option where we can use the rifle strike animation to fight off Walkers, as a last resort when all your ammo is gone. Not very effective, but you might take one with you.

Great game and thanks for the nightmares.....

Great post! I like all of your ideas and would love to see them implemented.

[Mechamorafa 0]

Rocket is planning to implement a hatchet item' date=' which will get wood from trees.

[/quote']

I was thinking about the same thing.

Please, tell him to make i take a while to get the wood from the tree and add a loud noise while you are doing it tha could atrract the attention of zombies and other players if they are around.

[Katana67 2907]

It really boggles my mind at how people assume that because a game has AN ASPECT of realism' date=' that it therefore needs/wants to be wholesale realistic at the expense of fun.

"Oh, you put a system whereby firewood is necessary to feed a fire"

"YOU MUST WANT TOILETS AND REALISTIC BOWEL MOVEMENTS"

...

Even as a joke, it's not even exceeding elementary school level of humor.

Obviously, the firewood mechanic isn't fleshed out and is being worked on. Hatchet things sound great, and I personally (along with people who play Day Z for something more than deathmatch) relish in the idea of foraging for firewood to survive.

Shit happened on BF3 forums all the time pre-release, "Oh, you want realistic bullet mechanics... You must want a 9-12 month waiting period before you can respawn then". Fucking morons.

Or, conversely, "I want realistic bullet mechanics". "We've got fuckin' medbags that heal you magically, what the hell we need realism for?".

[/quote']

You shouldn't confuse the reality of emotions you get from playing a game with the ability of a game to simulate reality. A videogame is never realistic, per se. More so, a game with zombies in it!

Making the survival more of a challenge is great, I am all for it. At the same time, if the suggested in-game tools for survival seem ridiculous to me (not even from the difficulty point of view, but gameplay-wise) - these forums is the place for me and others to say it. Having to leave wood to collect firewood (or, alternatively, needing a machete to collect firewood in a wood!) - seems too far-fetched for me.

And yes, I am perferctly aware that this is alfa etc. and no one makes me play it if I don't like it. But if I have a chance to make the game better for me by expressing what I dislike here, I am doing it. Sometimes, by means of "elementary school level of humor"-jokes, as you put it. After all, Rocket is no Carebear, heh :) )

Oh, you misinterpret. I support the right to question things you don't like in games. And I'm not saying this is you, but I'm just angry at the people with idiotic reasoning, as if one aspect of un-realism dictates a desired aspect of realism, and vice versa. They do not invalidate one another.

[dsi24 227]

God the "ITS AN ALPHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" apologizers/whiners are going to lead to the ruin of this game... just like BF3...

Collecting wood is an absolutely terrible mechanic, Chenarus is filled with old forests that would have plenty of kindle (dead twigs, bark, etc) laying around that even an idiot like the aforementioned whiners could figure out how to light up with matches.

Give matches a usage limit if you want to limit fires. Though collecting kindle to fuel a fire could be interesting, starting a fire should only cost a match (and maybe a small part of the "kindle collection area" that is forests could disappear)

[dieselhead 1]

Well, now it happened what I was waiting - even though I told myself don't play (until firewood is available in forests). I got killed by another player. Because I had to leave wildernes and put my longtime survivor at risk. To get firewood...from a willage. This is not entertaining anymore, it's morbidly stupid and frustrating.

Make firewood awailable where it should be awailable or disable this appalling feature.

I don't mind dying from another players, but dying like this...geez. And yes, it's a alpha, no need to remind us. We are aware of that.

[ulanthorn 0]

Best is to stay offline for now until the firewood situaton is clear in soem way. Have a AICE full of soda and beans, can wait a while in my deerstand at Skalka. BTW youre not safe anyore there anyway, just today I saw a Bandit couple roaming the Skalka area...they made me hide prone under a spruce tree for an hour in the rain...I caught me a cold by doing so.

[Ketsugo (DayZ) 1]

Well' date=' now it happened what I was waiting - even though I told myself don't play (until firewood is available in forests). I got killed by another player. Because I had to leave wildernes and put my longtime survivor at risk. To get firewood...from a willage. This is not entertaining anymore, it's morbidly stupid and frustrating.

Make firewood awailable where it should be awailable or disable this appalling feature.

I don't mind dying from another players, but dying like this...geez. And yes, it's a alpha, no need to remind us. We are aware of that.

[/quote']

If you were such a longtime survivor, wouldn't you know better than to mess up and get yourself killed?

[dieselhead 1]

If you were such a longtime survivor' date=' wouldn't you know better than to mess up and get yourself killed?

[/quote']

I had to get firewood. I was already some distance out of that willage proning under some trees checking my map and someone found me there. Visibility zero. What you gonna do when your luck runs out? What was MY mess up there? Being stupid to play when the situation concerning firewood is what it is.

[sorophx 25]

would you like to see a system in which when you get shot in any part of your body containing a major artery or vein' date=' there is no way to stop the bleeding, and you simply die?

[/quote']

I'd love that actually (that's how we play ArmA2 anyway, ACE Wounds + enemy skill at 0.8 (80% accuracy))

[edwood 1]

For wot its worth, i like 1.8.2 including the addition and placement of wood...

[vanrosemont 26]

considdering your name that is hardly surprising

[xaphoo 1]

Wood is indeed a bit of an immersion breaker. Chernarus is not a barren desert -- it's teeming with wood that you can pick up off the ground. There's broken furniture in every building. There are massive woodpiles in the backyards of many towns. Carrying some kind of "special" wood which takes up two inventory slots really doesn't make sense in light of the gameworld. Even if a hatchet were added to make forests a viable place to harvest wood, it still is a bit of a useless chore, since anyone who has gone camping once in their lives knows that all kinds of burnable materials are there for the scavenging.

Alendor (commenting above) is exactly right. The wood requirement for a fire should be removed.

[Gibbonici 9]

as a active out dores man' date=' survivalist, and dooms day half assed prepper the wood seems wrong anyone who hase been camping knows you can get more than enough wood off the ground and if you cant you have youre can use youre knife......

yes you can cut down trees with knives some of the best wood is in standing dead trees.

[/quote']

Totally agree, again from my own experience. There's almost always something to burn in the wilderness.

Also, I'd never cut fresh wood for a fire. Fresh wood smokes like a bastard, and you can see it for miles.

Gameplay-wise, I loved the simple fire building mechanic before. Not only did it strike me as being both realistic and elegant, but it also cut out some of the hoop-jumping bullshit that you expect from games these days.

[SkepticJerry 0]

I agree. Ditch the wood.

[LeYuno (DayZ) 51]

I don't really understand the problem with firewood. I've entered 6 or so buildings yesterday, and came across no less than 4 wood items in the process. They are just there, with the other loot. I'm actually finding it harder to come by matches than I do coming by firewood.

[Stonager 0]

The problem with firewood is that it makes me feel that my character is a total retard when he needs to go from a forest to a town to gather firewood. That kind of helpless guy would have never survived in the first place when SHTF. Being in a forest next to a fallen tree with hunting knife, box of matches and jerry can full of fuel but unable to make fire. It is a reality breaker.

Now before anyone rushes to tell that games are never fully realistic, I'll make my pre-emptive strike: this is a game/mod that simulates realistic survival while balancing with the limitations of being a computer game. Making the fire before was MORE realistic than it is now. Before I could just use my imagination when I set the fire and tell myself how the character is able to find burnable items all around. Now I cannot use my imagination to to fool myself why I cannot find wood in a forest.

[fackstah 31]

we all need to become lumber jacks its the only way to fix this problem give me a axe and point me to the nearest tree!

[zachary 0]

Matches should have limited use, forcing players to light only when they need to, and possibly share with others.

[fackstah 31]

they over complicated the system they should keep to the KISS principle Keep it Simple Stupid

instead of adding lumber why not add a limit to match use thus ending at the same result however with less heacache and less data used

[jimbo_and_ned 3]

Just jumping on the "fuck firewood, it's dumb and unrealistic" bandwagon here. If you see no problem with lugging around firewood in your inventory, you clearly haven't been in a forest before.

Also adding hatchets to solely get firewood is dumb. It's just "fixing" a retarded game mechanic with another retarded game mechanic.