More emergent gameplay

[Lady Kyrah 1110]

It is my belief that what makes DayZ so fascinating is that the game rules are very simple and comparable to the rules of physics in the real world.

Some of the very simple rules we already have that can be exploited in many different ways:

-Placing Barb wire and sandbags allow to fortify a building, secure encampments, funnel zombies and players.

-The wound system allow a variety of play, will you kill this guy or spare bullets by wounding him enough so the zombies can catch him?

-Tents: some use them as a lure to atract players in a killzone, some use them as a storage, some use them as the foundation of a player camp.

-Vehicles: some use them as mobile tents.

I think we should focus in thinking about features that are very simples and very close to "laws of physics" kind of features. The temperature system i'm sure will bring all kind of new situations. Which means, no "game like" rules because those always close up the gameplay rather than broadening it.

My suggestion that follow these guidelines:

Change the campfires so they make much more light and have a distinct "dark" smoke that can be seen over the trees, this would allow to find groups of players "hey look, there are peoples alive there!" and to allow players to use them as various signalisation methods.

Airhorns: They would be handheld items that basically emit a sound that can be heard from very far, could be used for signaling or to lure zombies away from a building, car horns could have the same effect?

Zipties and non letal weapons, this was suggested in another thread.

Addiction: Painkillers and other drugs could have some side effects, for example every painkiller taken increase the chance that the next painkiller will not calm your shake (your body is getting used to it), this would create some players that now are looking for painkillers to calm their addiction.

[Suicide Mouse 50]

I always liked the idea of creating more ways of signalization. It's incredibly useful and it can turn out both for better or worse.

Maybe signal guns on the airfields?

[Lady Kyrah 1110]

I'm not sure what you mean by signaling guns.

On a sidenote, i used to play a web game called "hordes" whose main plot was to survive, cooperatively every nights a zombie attack on a fortified city. All the day you could acomplish various useful and less useful actions, be a team player or a selfish bastard, there was all kind of shoddy tools and items that could save you sometimes or simply kill you (life in this game was extremely cheap).

You could die from drinking a poisoned water ration that an evil player would have laced with poison and put back in the city "bank"

You could die from dehidratation.

You could use stuffs like "electro stimulation" to make you work harder, which would literally hurt you and require medical help if you didn't want to die from an infection.

This game had very simple mechanics and 99% of all the game drama and happened in the little forum each city had.