Atmosphere in DayZ

[Keylime314 19]

I bought DayZ a week ago and so far I've adored the game. From it's free roaming and scavenging to its KOS'ing bastardized community. This isn't meant to be an OP thread, complaint thread, or anything or the sort. This is just a community based thread to kinda see how people would react, or even just to get some ideas.

Now as I said, I adore DayZ for what it is. Sure it has more problems than an algebra book, but there's some charm in that. The one thing that DOES get me in this game more than most others is the atmosphere. The oppressing loneliness when you're running along the shore. The deafening silence when you're in the woods. Flare lighting at night, the "ghost behind you" feeling you get in the dead of night.

For all DayZ has wrong with it there are a ton of things it's doing right. I won't go into PvP, PvE, Looting and the like, this thread is all about atmosphere. Now, considering all that I do like about this...I can't help but feel, even if it's "alpha", there's a lot of missed opportunity here. I'll give a few examples.

The first point I'd like to make while trying to avoid the talk of pvp and the likes; in terms of atmosphere, NVG and Thermal break immersion. Being forced to run in the dead of night, unable to see anything with only flares, flashlights and glow sticks to illuminate your path? Imagine running through a town, only a handful of glow sticks to light your way through the darkened zombie infested settlement. The nighttime flare animations hitting a tree line or building are beautiful and haunting. Honestly if you haven't, get a thing of roadflares, run to a forest/field area and throw one in the forest and in the fields. The lighting effects are beautiful, but noone has the chance to use them due to infinate thermal/night vision. Even flashlights with their directional lighting adds a lot to this game. Even keeping the NVG/Thermal IF you had to constantly power it with super rare batteries would be fine.

Another point that bugs me is the audio. Zombies sound rather....bland, there's no creepiness to the audio. The way they move is fine, honestly when they glitch I'm not upset, the jerking and shaking just makes them look more terrifying. Back to the sound however, the zombies have some wierd... nasally sound. There's no projection to the screams, heaves, and grunting. It may just be me nitpicking but as I said, it seems nasally and forced.

One huge thing that bugs me, and I mean HUGE...the lack of community input for the game. This one is a lot more broad, I'm not talking about weapons, vehicles, and the like. What I'm talking about is we have an extremely creative community overall, a "mod" that only grows with player support, and the game draws a lot of RP'rs into the community. There are tons of creative minds in this forums and they could be put to use. One of the things I'd like to use as an example is "Green Mountain". The entire "lore" of that mountain made by the community if phenomenal. The thought of something that's "Neither survivor, bandit, nor Zed" keeping watch and guarding that area is amazing. Keep in mind I'm not asking something put in the game like zombie bosses, or even let's say physical ghosts to see. What I'm saying is this in basic terms:

You run up to Green Mountain which opens a 3 part path

1a: Zombies Spawn as normal, nothing happens (90% trigger)

1b: Nothing spawns and as you pass through the game, all ambient noises disappear. No more wind/birds/ect. Just your footsteps, breath, and add ambient heartbeat.(5%)

1c: Nothing spawns and your vision goes black and white as you're forced into first person mode and your character view starts shaking. (5%)

2a: Nothing - normal shit.

2b: As you get near the radio tower faint growling sounds echo around you. No discernible direction.

2c: As your vision sways and shakes your breathing gets heavier. If you look in certain areas you might see let's say an "apparition" for lack of better term. Basically you would see a "figure" but since you couldn't focus your sight as soon as you turned back to see it, boom, it's gone.

3a: Again, still nothing

3b: Growling gets louder and more ferocious until you leave the area, even then it follows you for a little bit.

3c: Eventually your vision returns to normal (lets say after 5 seconds)

This is the kinda thing i'm talking about. Those would be simple triggers that you could complete with already implemented tools in the game. While the "C" path may effect gameplay, you could easily do "B" path with no issues. Christ, you could even add the radio item, go to certain spots to have creepy audio. Again, using green mountain as an example:

I like the game and this thread is all but guaranteed to be ignored by "Rocket", but at least in the community I'm sure there's a few people who can/would be interested in this kind of thing. Sorry for a bit of a rant, but yeah...I'd just like to see something ACTUALLY happen with this game and I feel atmosphere could be this game's strongest card.

Edited July 27, 2012 by Keylime314

[Keylime314 19]

Bump for community ideas and input

[blackout14@live.com 51]

Double bumpz. Scary video

[sausagekingofchicago 4711]

I don't think NV or Thermal should be removed but if there was a server option to turn them off I'd support that. I'd like to try night games without nv or thermal at least a few times just to see how different they play.

Your core idea is pretty cool too. I'm all for anything random that contributes to the games atmosphere.

[Keylime314 19]

Re-Bump

@sausage

I never said they should be removed, but adding a powersource to them imo would help. Giving them a requirement of batteries that have a low chance to spawn on convenience stores may be nice.

@Community

no ideas? So unless I make a thread labelled "BANDITS SUCK" or "BANDITS RULE" no posts are enabled? Come on, give some thoughts

[aseliot 23]

I don't really get people who feel this way about it, i know there are people out there at night that could have NVG but regulars can see me as good as i can see them. Also at night zombie vision drops to one stripe. I'd say this game is easier at night if you are not up against people with NVG. Wish i could feel about it this way though.

Edited July 29, 2012 by Aseliot

[Afgoo 114]

I'd actually play night if they removed NVGs and Thermal. The people who use those I believe may also be the people who call others "carebears" while they wander around perfectly safe at night, lol. Hopefully, that isn't the case.