Socializing

[McGristle 0]

The aim of this post is to suggest a game mechanic to introduce a couple aspects of survival that I think haven't been touched on: mental and emotional distress. No game I have played has come close to conveying these through the screen. However, the Sims does a great job of showing us how important it is for humans to socialize. Socializing keeps us sane. When people get scared - they want to talk (you see it in a movie theater all the time watching a scary movie). All the "bad guys" who are bean-fighting on the coast have no reason to stop bean-fighting. Socializing could be that reason.

A meter on the lower-right of the screen will represent this. Staying within earshot (5m, 10m, 20m...?) of another player makes the meter go up. This is to simulate you socializing with another person. Talking, sharing stories, giving advice, and other things like that will happen naturally when folks stay in close proximity to one another to raise their social meter. The more people around - the faster it increases, promoting sticking together and sharing information.

Murders give a negative modifier to the speed at which this increases. Talking to someone who has murdered another human is strange. They don't see the world through the same eyes as a non-murdering person does. This affects their ability to socialize with regular folks. So a player with 0 murders regenerates their Social meter at 100%. A player with 50 murders regenerates their Social meter at 75% (-.25% per murder). When your Social is below 50% you will do what crazy/brilliant/un-socialized people do - you talk to yourself.

Talking to yourself is disturbing, annoying, and/or hilarious depending on your point of view. It could also affect gameplay by making noise. Matter of fact it will certainly affect gameplay by making noise. To get rid of this you need to Socialize and stop being crazy.

End result is that the gun-toting maniacs will sound like gun-toting maniacs. It has the added benefit of giving the players an audible warning when there is a mass murderer doing his thing on the beach. It will also promote teamwork, trading, and bean-collecting by giving the pacifists a reason to get together. Hell, it may even bring the maniacs together to fix their social meter. THOSE will be some crazy stories.

So, bad guys, have fun socializing with your murderous pals. It will take a long time for any of you to trust one another (slow regeneration because they are all mass murderers) but you'll find some common ground eventually. Meanwhile, the bean-searchers are merrily chatting it up all the way North, into the forest.

[TheCoolestCat 1]

This makes no sense, why would your character start talking to himself? The point of this is to simulate a real zombie apocalypse setting. (Not sure how to do italics, so please forgive if this fucks up.) You are in a zombie apocalypse in this game. You are the character, your mental state in game is your mental state IRL. You are supposed to get in character, not have it done for you.

[McGristle 0]

This makes no sense' date=' why would your character start talking to himself? The point of this is to simulate a real zombie apocalypse setting. (Not sure how to do italics, so please forgive if this fucks up.) [i']You are in a zombie apocalypse in this game. You are the character, your mental state in game is your mental state IRL. You are supposed to get in character, not have it done for you.

Ok, I can see where you are coming from with that. But that goes both ways. My character is hungry although I just ate. My character is cold - but it's 96 degrees in the desert where I live. I know it's easy to be immersed in this game but it's still a simulation.

I'm not trying to break the fourth wall with this suggestion. I'm just saying that the mental and emotional effects of a worldwide disaster like this game's setting are generally not explored in most forms of media (excluding books and certain films like The Divide http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Divide_(film) ). This being a simulator for military operations and now zombie apocalypses would be the perfect space to explore the mental and emotional effects that people would be experiencing.

A social meter is just my suggestion for implementing it into the game.

[TheCoolestCat 1]

Ok' date=' I can see where you are coming from with that. But that goes both ways. My character is hungry although I just ate. My character is cold - but it's 96 degrees in the desert where I live. I know it's easy to be immersed in this game but it's still a simulation.

I'm not trying to break the fourth wall with this suggestion. I'm just saying that the mental and emotional effects of a worldwide disaster like this game's setting are generally not explored in most forms of media (excluding books and certain films like The Divide http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Divide_(film) ). This being a simulator for military operations and now zombie apocalypses would be the perfect space to explore the mental and emotional effects that people would be experiencing.

A social meter is just my suggestion for implementing it into the game.

[/quote']

How is that the same thing at all? Those are physical things happening to your character, mental state is not.

[McGristle 0]

How is that the same thing at all? Those are physical things happening to your character' date=' mental state is not.

[/quote']

So if you are supposed to be the character in this zombie apocalypse why is it that when I eat a sandwich IRL - my dude on-screen is still hungry? You are saying that we can't apply mental issues to our characters in-game but we can apply physical issues? Either way the game is still simulating hunger, pain, thirst, fatigue, temperature, and weather for us. Why not add mental issues?

[Kirjava 7]

Really like this idea, gives a little more reason to group with others, and isnt too harsh on murderers

[McGristle 0]

Thanks to you both for the feedback.

[Razor (DayZ) 0]

If there is no gameplay impact it's useless and irrelevant.

It has the added benefit of giving the players an audible warning when there is a mass murderer doing his thing on the beach.

Most firefights happen far beyond ranges of speech hearing. What the fuck am i reading?

[lockdown6 0]

How is that the same thing at all? Those are physical things happening to your character' date=' mental state is not.

[/quote']

So if you are supposed to be the character in this zombie apocalypse why is it that when I eat a sandwich IRL - my dude on-screen is still hungry? You are saying that we can't apply mental issues to our characters in-game but we can apply physical issues? Either way the game is still simulating hunger, pain, thirst, fatigue, temperature, and weather for us. Why not add mental issues?

that's because the game can't make you hungry, thirsty, tired, cold and in pain in real life. it can make you panicked/stressed/paranoid or whatever which will influence what you do in the game, that's why there's no need for things like that.

[McGristle 0]

If there is no gameplay impact it's useless and irrelevant. Most firefights happen far beyond ranges of speech hearing. What the fuck am i reading?

There's plenty of impact. Babbling to yourself could increase your audible profile making it harder for you to sneak past zombies.

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that's because the game can't make you hungry' date=' thirsty, tired, cold and in pain in real life. it can make you panicked/stressed/paranoid or whatever which will influence what you do in the game, that's why there's no need for things like that.

[/quote']

I really hope people aren't going crazy and babbling to themselves IRL because of their experiences in the mod.

The whole point of the suggestion is to simulate the mental and emotional issues that the characters would have and to give people a reason to stick together. Fostering communication, sharing information, and working together for whatever reason they choose.

[lockdown6 0]

If there is no gameplay impact it's useless and irrelevant. Most firefights happen far beyond ranges of speech hearing. What the fuck am i reading?

There's plenty of impact. Babbling to yourself could increase your audible profile making it harder for you to sneak past zombies.

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that's because the game can't make you hungry' date=' thirsty, tired, cold and in pain in real life. it can make you panicked/stressed/paranoid or whatever which will influence what you do in the game, that's why there's no need for things like that.

[/quote']

I really hope people aren't going crazy and babbling to themselves IRL because of their experiences in the mod.

The whole point of the suggestion is to simulate the mental and emotional issues that the characters would have and to give people a reason to stick together. Fostering communication, sharing information, and working together for whatever reason they choose.

then let's ignore the whole real life-game thing and consider that your suggestion directly punishes PVP by making it much harder for "bandits" to stalk people or survive when sneaking past zombies at all. the only punishment for PVP that should be in the game is what other people do to you.

[raviool 2]

this thread is based solely on the thought that survivors are playing the game like it should be and bandits are the bad people and they shouldnt exist and therefore, it should be discouraged with retarded shit like this. no, sandbox means all kinds of play styles are welcome.

[lev 39]

If you are seriously considering this idea, then why not implement other mental states too.

Like if a friendly survivor dies near you, you go into a state of shock and can't move for a bit. Then afterwards, you are so disturbed by the tragic loss of your friend that you can't focus and thus your aim is worse. You also start getting depressed and eventually have a percent chance of committing suicide if you don't overcome your depression. Also having depressed party members should reduce team morale and reduce the accuracy of these players and also reduce stamina. Yeah lets add these features as well to simulate mental states into the game.

[clever 12]

Lack of social contact doesn't make you talk to yourself, you just have a lack of social contact. It doesn't profoundly affect you unless you haven't talked to a person in a very long time.

[Shag 90]

I actually believe you don't need any new mechanic to use socialization as a mechanic to prevent murders. Simply just remove global comms. Many people do socialize through online games, and seem to chat away even when at opposite ends of the map.

Remove this ability, and people have to group to socialize.

Once grouped to socialize, people can see how you play. We then get groups of hunters and groups of survivors, and everybody organizes more and has a fuller epxerience.

[McGristle 0]

this thread is based solely on the thought that survivors are playing the game like it should be and bandits are the bad people and they shouldnt exist and therefore' date=' it should be discouraged with retarded shit like this. no, sandbox means all kinds of play styles are welcome.

[/quote']

This suggestion was in response to Rocket asking the players for suggestions about how to stop the bean-wars on the coast. Nothing in my suggestion says you can't play a bandit - you will just sound like the stark raving mad maniac that you are forcing your character to be.

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then let's ignore the whole real life-game thing and consider that your suggestion directly punishes PVP by making it much harder for "bandits" to stalk people or survive when sneaking past zombies at all. the only punishment for PVP that should be in the game is what other people do to you.

It doesn't punish PvP at all. It just shows you the consequences of your actions. Murdering hundreds of innocent people will change your character.

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If you are seriously considering this idea' date=' then why not implement other mental states too.

Like if a friendly survivor dies near you, you go into a state of shock and can't move for a bit. Then afterwards, you are so disturbed by the tragic loss of your friend that you can't focus and thus your aim is worse. You also start getting depressed and eventually have a percent chance of committing suicide if you don't overcome your depression. Also having depressed party members should reduce team morale and reduce the accuracy of these players and also reduce stamina. Yeah lets add these features as well to simulate mental states into the game.

[/quote']

Absolutely brilliant. I will work on adding more effects into the suggestion. The gun-to-mouth animation should be disturbing in first-person.

[raviool 2]

forcing people to have a need to socialize/feel shocked when horrible shit happens is against all this mod stands for. perhaps stuff should be done with the actions on the coast but your suggestion is just utterly dumb for this mod. if i want to be a lonely lunatic i will be, i know i wont socialize and i will be okay with it. similarily, forcing someone to go to shock when someone dies is forcing someone to give a fuck about them but they might not care at all in real life.