Permadeath in the post apocalypse (bit of an essay)

[JerFeelgood 34]

Yo yo,

I recently discovered the world of DayZ and ArmA, but unfortunately do not have the sys req at the moment to actually play the game. I;ve watched a lot of videos online re the project and been reading the forum intensively... newayz....

I like what I think Rocket was aiming for when he started this project. To use existing tools (The ArmA engine with which he was familiar) to simulate a post apocalyptic world in which a social experiment regarding which direction humanity would take in such a situation. I believe when I get back to my PC to actually play the game, I would like to play keeping the ideal of the original concept in place.

In looking at the way the game plays now, I believe that their are several problems outside of his control in a F2P open server environment (and that he will never be able to control with ANY update) that limit the viability of the experiment. Players will not give up ingrained tools and concepts to actively participate in the experiment.

The biggest tool is communication. In a paranoid post apocalyptic world, communication should be extremely difficult. The existence of global chat, where you can assess someones intentions from miles away should be strictly curtailed. All communication should be restricted to within the game. With the existence of TeamSpeak and Ventrillo this will be impossible to enforce. Absolutely impossible. And without this restriction it makes it way too easy for clans and squads to dominate the combat environment. Imagine a group environment where you had to communicate with flashlight or visual codes to transmit outside of ingame audible distance. I think if players were willing to give up their communication tools, it would go a long way to making the game a lot more interesting from a survival point of view. It would be like reinventing the wheel in terms of gameplay. How would you assess someones intentions without these tools? would a community reinvent signals and tools to advertise their friendly intentions?

Imagine your squad of four hunters trying to coordinate an attack without an independent comms tool? Imagine they had to make sounds audible to all in-game to actually communicate and coordinate, you're set up in your sniper position and one of your squad scouts 400m away to your west, and then wants to return, how does he identify himself when returning to the squad to prevent infiltration? After player death, how do you safely relocate your squad? I think this would MASSIVELY increase paranoia levels in the game... and go a long way to increase the seriousness of the permadeath experiment... How would you even relocate your friends after you wake up on the beach? how would you identify yourself to them to come within the security perimeter that would inevitably spring up?

How could one enforce this in the current game environment? It could only be done voluntarily. Players would have to choose to give up the tools on which they rely. And that could be maintained with closed access subscriber based servers or a code of conduct signup in the installation of the mod. A server where one must sign up to a code of conduct before being allowed in, and being banned for breaches of the code of conduct. It should be fairly easy to determine from admin observer mode whether someone is using illegitimate modes of communication. This code of conduct would only relate to the use of tools external to game and the post apocalyptic world which the devs have not deliberately given you access. Anything in game would be fair game.

PvP vs PvE seems to be a massive argument ongoing in these forums at the moment.... I would argue that it should be possible to make the PvP element part of the PvE so that there is no difference, but this would only be possible if you could limit access to the tools that make PvP play so easy i.e. ease of communication, the abiity to bring equipment from one server to another... I have no real problems with lone nuts on killing sprees, they may well be a reality of the post apocalyptic zombie world. I do have a major problem with players using tools not given (external comm programs) to them to clean up in the game... is the use of ANY external software not an exploit in itself?

anyway, I also think the 3rd person look around corners exploit is a bit broken when a tool (mirror on a bayonnet anyone?) could do the same in a much more immersive and realistic way. I have no problems woth loads of guns lying about but surely in the post apocalypse ammo would get really rare really fast. Readily consummable items should have the highest rareity value (ammo, matches, food, fresh blood, meds, batteries etc) and making them extremely rare woud go a long way to absorbing the PvP element into the PvE one as camping cherno wouldn't allow you to survive. You'd have to get out into the woods to make your own food. Similar to how vehicles are restored with parts, a limited access to lead, saltpetre, fire and relevent casting tools would allow you to make your own ammo and make it a tradeable commodity, It's the ease of access to these resources that makes PvP style of play so easy. it would be so easy to make an ingame specific tool which is a container, into which you place the required elements, then use it at a relevent spot an out pops what you where aiming for. Mouldy fruit + mortar and pestle + distillation equipment + fire = penicillin. Blood extaction kit + container + well hydrated/well fed indiviaual = bloodbag. Thinking along the lines of potion making from oblivion or skyrim. An ability to perform certain tasks could be restricted to certain environments. Imagine a garage building in a couple of towns where you would have to push/tow vehicles to in order to perform certain sorts of repairs, a chemist where one could make meds, and so on for all of the in game essentials.....

Why are people so absolutely willing to circumvent the dev inspired game concept of permadeath? With a player death, surely all previous knowledge and ties should be lost to you. This includes knowledge of your friends and the surroundings.... It has always been true that the two greatest tools to humanity are knowledge and information. An ability to store and transmit these. In the post apocalyptic world, so much of both should be lost as to make certain specialist equipment both unusable and unmaintainable. In game high end electronics would suffer quickly, and as a result should disappear relatively quickly, and thence their value should be huge. This would imply the game would have to have a skill acquisition system, and massive penalties for those individuals without access to certain skills i.e. PvP bandits.

These simple couple of things would inspire communities to spring up around certain resources, become protective of those resources and thence make those resources tradeable as they would have value...

And with restricted access to bullets, meds and beans, I would not see a player killer surviving very long. With no comms, coordinated raids on burgeoning communities would have a much lower chance of succeeding.

And lastly, the threat element from the zombie apocalypse should be massively strenghtened. If it was bad enough to take out the world in the first place it should should still present a massive threat to all human life. Ideally adding extra senses in game would add to the realism, touch (think wind sense, heat sense), smell and taste via a pc odor plume (and other odour plumes) and wind directions for upwind/downwind combined with a colour code to identify the type of odour. A zombie awareness of these elements would lead to an increased threat factor, a group of people would generate more odour and thence would attract more zombies, staying in a place too long could massively increase risk and should prevent camping....

I really don't know how many of these game devices could realistically be added to the game engine without overwhelming the server and user hardware....

Anyway. Sorry about the essay. I'm all for some PvP play once it's made intrinsic to the game device. I apologise if some of these ideas have been discussed in other threads.... and big up to the devs for the concept. It seems clear that the PC gaming public are fairly homicidal... will that be the result of the DayZ experiment...?

My closing thought... do players want a survival based community game or a modern-day PvP persistent world warfare game with a zombie threat... do zombies in modern culture not just replace the wolves and bears and dragons that represented the horror threat of the medieval and dark ages?

whew. that was almost to much. hope i don't get flamed...

Jer

*edit* whoops meant to post this in general discussion not newbie forum....

Edited July 26, 2012 by JerFeelgood

[Beanus 61]

can we get a tl;dr? :P

[JerFeelgood 34]

can we get a tl;dr? :P

I don't recognise the acronyms?

And I did say in the title it was an essay...

jer

Edited July 26, 2012 by JerFeelgood

[Golgo82 28]

Nice essay but kind of futile.

Like you already stated, external communication will exist as long as people want to use them. No way to prevent players from using those without intrusive (and illegal) software built into a game.

On the same note, there is no way to prevent "ninja lore" (player knowledge used as character knowledge) unless people want to not use what they already know about the game.

Since players themselves are in control, none of these things are ever going to change.

3rd person is kind of an exploit as it can very effectively be used to simulate abilities known as extrasensory perception and if you throw that in the mix with some ghillied sniper, you are in for an asskicking.

To prevent this I only play on servers without 3dp - problem solved without impacting other peoples gaming pleasure.

One thing i do wholeheartedly agree about is the fact that a "crafting" system with recipes to uncover(loot on zombies/in military bases/farms/barns) would greatly benefit this game.

ps: tl;dr basically means that someone is

1) mentally unable to read/process your written information

2) too lazy to do it

3) trying to upset you by pretending to not having read your post, even though they have

and should therefore be regarded with no response at all

Edited July 26, 2012 by Golgo82

[JerFeelgood 34]

Nice essay but kind of futile.

Like you already stated, external communication will exist as long as people want to use them. No way to prevent players from using those without intrusive (and illegal) software built into a game.

On the same note, there is no way to prevent "ninja lore" (player knowledge used as character knowledge) unless people want to not use what they already know about the game.

As i said, if a code of conduct was included in the installation, EULA, then admins could legitimately kick and ban users displaying traits of external communication.

How? Use observer mode. If a squad strolls up a hill, disperses to a plan, and reacts universally to individual knowledge without any evidence of ingame communication then that would be legitimate grounds for a kick. ban for repeated offenses...

Obviously an appeal method would have to be included... in a closed server invite only environment, I think this could be workable...

jer

*edit* what I meant to say was the effects of external comm tools should be easily observable in game, and if they were in breach of the code of conduct etc. etc......

Edited July 26, 2012 by JerFeelgood