My fellow players, a revelation which has occurred to me:

[chunkeymonkey79 86]

After seeing all these threads complaining about the difficulty of DayZ, I have decided to create this thread, hoping to enlighten all the players suffering from butthurt or noobitis.

...

Call it whatever you wish, DayZ is a true game. A game which takes players back to the glory days of gaming, which challenges the player to experiment and create new ways to defeat difficult challenges and puzzles. Upon completion of said objectives, the player was rewarded in a lucrative way to keep them going, and it made the game fun.

You were able to play the game to your liking, grind for best times, who cared about graphics! The best games had storylines, deep enriching tales which sucked you into the game world, creating tension and an unrivaled atmosphere.

Unfortunately...the next generation was starting to be able to use technology, and thus the storm clouds gathered.

Developers became corrupted, and the gaming world took a plunge downward. They realized, that rather than making enjoyable games to a smaller market, it was easier to create a simpler, linear game experience which the kids were able to comprehend, much to the dismay of older gamers. Franchises such as the Call of Duty series were ruined, devolving from story-driven singleplayer games into carbon copy, unlockable items, same engine game, EVERY year.

Consoles became more prevalent, due to their low cost and accessibility, which made it easier for kids to operate. The rift continued to grow between the gamers of old and new, and the middle class of gaming, is now virtually gone. Hardly any longer do you have hardcore PC gamers take a break and play console, or hardcore console gamers playing a custom PC.

The industry further beat down the PC gaming market by developing games with consoles in mind, hurriedly making PC ports to appease the small market of PC gaming. Unfortunately, the half-assed efforts of such ports further destroy good gaming and increase the rift in-between.

Now don't get me wrong, some games and companies have managed to stay on the path of fun gaming...kind of. Take Deus Ex: Human Revolution for example. A truly glorious game, but even it suffers from the cancer of pre-rendered take down scenes from modern video games.

So, in the Dark Age of mindless gaming, and the increase of console gamers, what savior comes along?

DayZ. Yes, believe it.

This game has cracked the dark glass of gaming. Finally, a true game experience where challenge is there, and is ready to beat you down, wear you to pieces, and spit you out. And the best part is, you want more, because it is a fun, engaging experience which takes you back to the roots of gaming, where the fun was a non-linear, no help, and definitely a no favor route.

So to the players who believe DayZ is bad because it is hard: man up! Life will not give you everything on a silver platter, so de-program yourselves! Challenge yourselves! Get friends interested, and play a true game, one which takes skill and experience to complete, rather than pressing buttons.

The glass has cracked, so to speak, of the current age of gaming. The web of cracks expand ever farther, slowly leaking light which is the glory of older, truer gaming experiences.

...

And so concludes my very large sermon. If you find the things I presented offensive, and you wish to support the dark age of gaming by burying your head's in the sand and flaming my thread, go ahead.

[LogyHD 6]

once u get used to the game it is addicting!!!!!!!

[Stubbies 67]

Nice thread.

[Littleassassin2 73]

I remember back in the day where health never regenerated either.. You were given the health you had for the entire mission and you were lucky enough to pick up a health pack, if the game even had them at all. Stories like Socom 1-3, and Resident Evil were truly great, Killzone even has a phenomenal story, and Mass Effect even better, but like you said, games are getting too easy now adays.

Then Dayz came along and it's either great but gets a little blah after a while to the gamer of old, or its way too hard for the cod kids lol.

[con7act 29]

True, i am addicted to this game, because its a open world, no one takes me by the hand, i have to learn everything by myself. thats how gaming was like 10-15 years ago.

Today if i play a game, the game developers make me feel i am some retard with special needs, who cant play by himself.

DayZ is THE REAL GAME.

You and everything you do, will influence the game for other players.

Edited July 29, 2012 by con7act

[Elwood (DayZ) 8]

Thank you. Phrased beautifully and right on.

I returned to PC gaming for D3 but was completely bored after slaying the demon king. No inspiration at all to play through on a harder difficulty just to run through the rat maze again.

Then came DayZ...my saving grace.

[Doctor_sloth 119]

I agree with what you're saying about the current game market, but I do take offense to the statement on the lack of a middle class of gaming. I personally spent two grand on a gaming computer, and I also own an Xbox360 which I play regularly. Many of my friends do the same. What's the first thing I ever played a game on? A PS1. I missed out on a lot of the "old school" games that people love to regale about because sometimes there was a choice between electricity and having the water on.

The purpose of my comment on your post is not to start an argument about the things you've said, it's the idea behind your post that I'd like to discuss. DayZ is a great mod. Given time, it will be a great game. But Black Ops 2 will still make billions of dollars, and so will the next one they put out. Minecraft is one of my favorite games, and has been a commercial success, but it's not going to change the market. The fact is that I agree with you on the point that people need to man the fuck up and quit whining because DayZ doesn't hold their hand and kills you every chance it gets. But the fact of the matter is that the "golden days" of old-school gaming are over. Sure a niche of people will support DayZ and I'm sure it will be judged a success commercially. But it's not going to make a big enough impact to make the companies that dominate the industry care about. Will they make copies? Probably. But COD, Battlefield, MOH, Madden, FIFA and the like are not going to change their formula to make games more "hardcore" It's less like the glass is cracking, and more like a beautiful diamond sparkling in the darkness.

TL;DR? The good ol' days are over, but there will always be gems like Dayz to remind us of the way things are.

[chunkeymonkey79 86]

I agree with what you're saying about the current game market, but I do take offense to the statement on the lack of a middle class of gaming. I personally spent two grand on a gaming computer, and I also own an Xbox360 which I play regularly. Many of my friends do the same. What's the first thing I ever played a game on? A PS1. I missed out on a lot of the "old school" games that people love to regale about because sometimes there was a choice between electricity and having the water on.

The purpose of my comment on your post is not to start an argument about the things you've said, it's the idea behind your post that I'd like to discuss. DayZ is a great mod. Given time, it will be a great game. But Black Ops 2 will still make billions of dollars, and so will the next one they put out. Minecraft is one of my favorite games, and has been a commercial success, but it's not going to change the market. The fact is that I agree with you on the point that people need to man the fuck up and quit whining because DayZ doesn't hold their hand and kills you every chance it gets. But the fact of the matter is that the "golden days" of old-school gaming are over. Sure a niche of people will support DayZ and I'm sure it will be judged a success commercially. But it's not going to make a big enough impact to make the companies that dominate the industry care about. Will they make copies? Probably. But COD, Battlefield, MOH, Madden, FIFA and the like are not going to change their formula to make games more "hardcore" It's less like the glass is cracking, and more like a beautiful diamond sparkling in the darkness.

TL;DR? The good ol' days are over, but there will always be gems like Dayz to remind us of the way things are.

What you say there is true. Think of the movie the Incredibles. I haven't seen it in a long time, but I remember someone telling Mr. Incredible that the "golden days" are over, but who knows.

I know they won't come back, and occasionally gems will sparkle, and bring us back.

Also, I don't think I said that the middle class is gone, just dwindling, if I did, my mistake.

[Doctor_sloth 119]

What you say there is true. Think of the movie the Incredibles. I haven't seen it in a long time, but I remember someone telling Mr. Incredible that the "golden days" are over, but who knows.

You know that no matter what else you post on this forum, every time I see "chunkymonkey79" I'm going to picture you as Mr. Incredible.

[enforcer1975 1111]

I'd give you a full crate of beans if i could.

Games should be challenging, you have to make the decisions and not the developer for you. He should not take you by the hand and show you the way like they did the past few years. No beans ( reward ) for dying. ArmA could one of the last games that drives players with no balls away because the learning curve is steep and you can't rely on super special items like you have them in MMORPGS and actually have to literally use your hands to survive. Don't get me wrong. MMORPGS are good but in the end it's just "who has the best combination of items in his inventory", no unique gaming style, every player a clone of the other, the only thing that makes you different is a set of cloths which everybody else can buy.

[WisdomSnork 42]

People want their games on rails nowadays, each experience meticulously planned and executed like a scene in a movie. I gave my beans to the OP and I'd give him my frank too if I could.

[steelbruh 0]

tl;dr

[Disgraced 1123]

There a bits out there, but I agree with the OP.

Apparently thre are some challenging iOS games out there, and that's where a burgeoning market of games are coming out and a few of them shed the casual gaming game play.

I was surprised to find glimmers of this concept in the browser based MMO "The Secret World".

I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but there are a couple of puzzles so far that have been very challenging and entertaining.

Interestingly, that game also points to another crutch these days, and that is the ease with which things can be looked up on the Internet. Stuck? Just find a walk through. Find a YouTube video to show you how to do it.

Some games get ruined simply by that. It takes some fortitude to not just hit the Internet and keep moving, to enjoy a challenge even if it takes a few hours.

Sadly, most these days consider overcoming a challenge that is not mouse twitch based as a waste of time.

[WisdomSnork 42]

Challenges aren't fair. If I have to sit there and think to figure it out, if I'm not given a way point to my next quest giver, I am simply lost.

[A Bush killed me 189]

Day z is easy. Its fighting the bugs and hackers that are hard.

[Alpo 38]

Bugs should be reported - not fought. Same for cheaters.

Don't waste time trying to fight them. Don't feed them with your emotions.

[Dr Cheese 100]

Personally I enjoyed the hell out of games over the years. I still play the Stalker games with and without some of the great mods, I'm on my ninth play through of Far cry 2, Metro 2033 was linear but quite brutal at times. Endless hours of fun in Fallout 3 and I haven't even got New Vegas yet.

I never really got into the COD games so i'm not missing out there.

Had loads of fun with the Battlefield and Ghost Recon games though. And I had Arma 2 since release and still have a great time in the editor setting up huge battles and watching them play out (Ambient Combat Manager FTW).

I loved the first Dead Space, not so much the sequel, played it through about 10 times so far and will do again .

So yeah basically I'm not complaining at all. Seek out the games you like, support them and you get out what you put in. And if you don't like what's on offer you can always get into the modding scene and have a go at doing something yourself, you never know you might end up making the next dayz!

[WisdomSnork 42]

Dead Space is awesome, and Dead Space 2 had freakin BEAM WEAPONS!

Try the latest in the X universe series of games for a seriously immersive space sim/4x

Edited July 29, 2012 by WisdomSnork

[nemahsys 4]

There are plenty of other amazing modern titles that bring back the gaming awesomeness from "back in the day" Go grab demons soul's for starters (console title), once you have died a bajillion times and beat it thoroughly and have fallen completely in love with it go and grab its sequel, dark soul's (soon to be available on PC...who says petitions dont work?). You will relive your glory days of gaming with these titles, just thought you should know.

[herd 69]

before dayz you always had arma1 / arma2 -.- A true PC game like you say

Edited July 29, 2012 by Roboserg

[:VADER: 88]

some games are just insulting, games use to take months and years and word of mouth to master.

[WhiteCrown 9]

The game is not hard ,only if you play it cod style tho.

But the game is indeed unforgiving and that is what makes it great

[erlebnis 3]

DayZ is only hard if you're used to play spoon-fed games. It's as "hard" as someone who wants to play Master System's After Burner and buys Flight Simulator.

Having been a fan of simulation for many years (from racing to flying to war) and having played Arma 2 before it only took me a couple of sessions to find DayZ "too easy".

I put it between brackets because, after you learn the basics of DayZ (i.e., how close you can get to a zombie w/o aggroing it and how to lose an aggroed zombie) you're pretty much left with Arma 2's PvP.

OP, yours is a nice post, but if you think this "cracked the dark glass of gaming"... come on. I was there when people refused to play Indianapolis 500 (released in 1989) because it was "too complicated", allowing you to set up camber, springs and whatnot and get into a 500 mile race with a very unforgiving damage model. Instead, people preferred to keep playing "Test Drive", the Accolade classic from 1987 which had no physics, no opponents, no damage model, no car setup... but was "plug and have fun for 10 minutes" kind of thing. Did car simulations die? Of course not. But we still have rFactor/iRacing and Need for Speed XX (because they need to invent a new one per year to keep it interesting).

This is as old as gaming.

The hilarious point of this all is BI launched a open world war sim and people thought it was too complicated. They thought BF P4F is much more fun. Then they said: ok, ok, "war sim with zombies"... and it becomes a hit!

I'm not saying DayZ doesn't give you a unique experience. It does. For a couple of hours (or a few hours if you are not used to hard-core gaming). Then you're left with Arma 2 in civilian outfits and Ghillie Suits.

The biggest asset DayZ did, imo, was to create an objective within Arma 2. Survival. And to make it feasible without team work. Because if you joined public Arma 2 servers... it's hilarious. Most people are incapable of realizing what the objective is (unless it is as simple as "capture a flag") and get so frustrated they team kill within the base. They are incapable of getting out of the base for that, too. When they do realize what the objective is, they are absolutely incapable of teaming up, not even with ONE fellow fighter. And Arma 2 is damn hard with a team, let alone without one.

So kudos for the mod. It stripped out Arma's complications to say: ok, here it is you survivor. You don't need to team up and you have no objectives but surviving. They made the game *easy*, almost drawn for children. And that's one of the reasons it reaches a much broader audience than Arma 2 alone could.

So, sorry OP, I couldn't disagree with you more on most of your main points.

[Matalgirrafe 65]

IS it just me that finds Day Z easy, it's just time consuming and if I get killed by a bandit, just a hour till iv'e got all the loot I died with, it's a really easy game!

[niccolo machiavelli 0]

To the OP,

I really like you post as you make some very good points. Minus a few grammar errors it would have been worthy as a published article. Of course grammar errors are what plague the world’s population of today so I wouldn’t beat myself up if I was you. Sometimes reading what you have written helps :)

Everyone else who has posted should do the same. It is tiring trying to decipher your illiteracy.Good thing your summer is almost over children.

Edited July 29, 2012 by Savage