Rockets Dog Feature

[ryokukitsune 5]

in a recent interview Rocket did with Machenima he mentioned that he planed on throwing dogs into the game. I listened to the whole interview and the part about dogs was a little disconcerting. It sounds like a very weak feature to the game as a freebie to players rather than another layer to the simulated zombie apocalypse. What makes this game a great attention grabbing concept is that it is unapologeticaly [damn spellcheck fails...] hard. The world is a dangerous place and there are a lot of factors that make it inhospitable to people even without the factor of zombies playing their part to drum our life expectancies down.

What makes me think that this is a poorly conceived feature is the fact that Rocket is researching how to “train” dogs. I can speak from experience and say that training a dog can take months if not YEARS to accomplish and unless there was a mechanic introduced that made the life expectancy of the game skyrocket average characters don't have that much time to devote to anything but getting their next can of beans or a few more rounds of ammunition before either a zombie or a bandit make them bite the big one prematurely.

That said I'm not against dogs being in the game but not as companions. I think World War Z had a pretty good picture of how dogs would behave after the fall of man. The novel assumes that we fend off the zombies to an extent to collect ourselves but unless our k9 friends survived with us then there is a very small chance that any friendly dogs wouldn't be around in the time frame of Day Z (seemingly a few months to a year after the outbreak) anything that still had an attachment to humans either died off long ago or has become leery of humans. What would survive apart from human companionship would be the feral dogs who hunt/scavenge to survive and know that humans, at least zombies, are bad news so they would be un-trusting creatures of human in nature if they could tell the difference at all.

If dogs where to be put in the game I'd like to see them be a neutral AI that should be avoided as much as zombies but just as dangerous to the players survival by where they are found. In cities dogs play a big part in urban warfare and in the zombie apocalypse. If they could tell the difference between a living player and the shuffling horde they would bark at players to warn them to keep their distance, exposing a general presence of a player to the horde and other players alike.

If a player ended up getting to close to a dog then they would be just as likely to attack as a zombie but more likely to cause a ruckus or cut and run as soon as they attracted the attention of zombies. If the player was aggroed with them the zombies would be distracted between the two potential prey making it a little easier for one or both of them to get away.

Feral dogs are also incredibly difficult to train. They would be extremely freaked out by one player making kissy faces at them not to mention a whole group of survivors and would almost certainly run rather than come get a cut of steak.

Even if they where included as a companion they would be dangerous to keep around. Trained to detect things the behavior of barking would have to be trained out. Trained to guard something they would be difficult to relocate because of unfamiliar territory and likely flee at the first sign of danger. Then there is keeping them healthy, its hard enough to keep a character in the black let alone a dog. About the only thing you could do for a pet dog after the apocalypse would be to bandage it up. Dogs cant take the same medication or the same dosages as human, they can't take blood packs and are far less composed and disciplined when forced to walk on a bad injury.

I'm a humanitarian in my life but it all boils down to that in its current form dogs would make better bait or meat than a companion in the game world.

I'd like to get Rocket into a discussion on this, in PM if I could because its something I'm open to though I think it could use some serious work. Its purely academic anyway so its not like my opinion shouldn't change anything but it would be fun to get the consensus of my fellow players on the matter to see where the wind is blowing.

Edited August 7, 2012 by Ryokukitsune

[BunnyHillPro 111]

TL:DR - Can you give me the jist?

[ryokukitsune 5]

TL:DR - Can you give me the jist?

it would take to long to train dogs, they would be better as bait or meat. in cities they would be a good indicator to players in the area and be just as likely to aggro zombies. plus some logical spitballing on why making them companions is a bad idea. thanks for your honesty though =P

[biggy101 9]

Was Rocket giving us a hint in the in his latest post in the next update thread? "WOOF WOOF".

http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/52196-pending-update-build-1725/page__st__620

Edited August 7, 2012 by biggy101

[bazbake 456]

Maybe the dogs that survived are either ex-military and ex-police dogs that you could train to help you out or feral dogs that are untrainable?

An ex-military or police dog would already be trained for scouting, recovery, and tracking and have problem attributes trained out of her.

The dogs you can't train joined into packs, the ones you can train have already been trained to work with humans in crisis situations and are badass enough to survive the apocalypse on their own.

[stripes 92]

The way I understand it is Rocket is simply testing 'dogs' as a new inclusion in the game. if they dont 'work' for whatever reason he will remove them.

Personally, I quite like the idea of a companion.

Edited August 7, 2012 by MadMax