Social Observation: Playing DayZ to not play DayZ

[ACow 102]

For those of you who don't like open ended observations or long posts, stop reading now. I'm just putting it out there for discussion....

I came to the DayZ party relatively late, and I'm having a riot of a time, but there's an observation I've made on a significant portion of the community that I'd like to reflect on. I do not know how many of these people there are, but I think they make up a significant minority of the total players. A majority, well, I don't know, maybe, maybe not. I have no figures, but I will observe that this attitude permeates various discussions relatively openly.

I will call this group the "come to DayZ to not play DayZ"ers. No, I don't mean the hackers per se, its obvious they aren't playing the game properly. Lets ignore them for now. And no, I'm not making prescriptions about what, if anything, should be done about it. Nor am I telling you "what dayZ should be". I'm making an observation....

So what am I talking about? Well, its not black and white, but the easiest way to picture it is to think of some of those aspects which, on an intellectual level, make DayZ...well...DayZ. Those things that really stand out from other games available, and I think we all know what they are to some extent:

• Permadeath and losing your items on death
  
• Scavenging for your equipment
  
• Stark finiteness of resources
  
• The feeling and disorientation inherent in isolation on a big post-apocalyptic world
  
• Spontenaeity of random social experiences
  
• etc etc etc...
  

So the easiest way to talk about the group who "play DayZ to not play DayZ" is to go down such a list and look at the desires/gaming style that has developed, and ask "Do those things apply?", or "Is their entire mode of operation geared around making sure that such game mechanics do not apply to them". Observe:

• Permadeath: People are specifically organising their game to avoid this mechanic. They love to talk about it and how "hardcore" it is, but they don't REALLY want it to apply to them. That would suck. And so they play with a group of friends, and organise it so that if and when anyone dies, they either race back to get their stuff, or their friends take it and hold it for them.
  
• Scavenging: This is a grey area, and comes in a variety of forms. Loot maps, server hopping and camping specific locations to get respawning equipment, and clan stockpiling. It is when a person is not wandering the wasteland/wilderness, stumbling across those rare finds, setting up a makeshift camps to store a couple of beans. Basically, when your gameplay stops representing hunter/gatherer type behaviour, and now resembles loot-agriculture.
  
• Stark finiteness of resources: Item duping, clan camps with all sorts of vehicles, unlimited ammo bugs. Lets be honest and say that the number of people running around with ghillies, sniper rifles, nvgs at the moment makes a bit of a mockery of the "rarity" of these items or the scarcity of resources. I think a significant portion of the community doesn't really want a stark finiteness of resources to apply to them.
  
• Disorientation/isolation: Some people just come right out and say they don't want this(I'm not one of them). Starting alone, unarmed, unsure, vulnerable on a beach. Having to find survivors. What kind of sucky game is this! They want to be able to start immediately with their (preferably well armed)pre-arranged friends.
  
• Spontenaeity of random social experiences: Part of this, I think, stems from the other aspects of "not playing DayZ". A lot of people are complaining that "everyone just shoots on sight". Now, I've been lucky enough to have a couple of social experiences where they don't, and they were almost always spontaneous encounters by chance, earlier on in the game, and specifically where the other aspects of "Playing DayZ" actually applied to us both. Scroll down the list above and think for a moment. Are the people who "Play DayZ to not play DayZ" going to shoot you on sight or take that chance to come talk with you? I think the former. They aren't in this for the "DayZ experience".
  

Now the funny thing is I'm all for player killing and bandits. Its one of those things that keeps you on edge, and every now and then there's someone, or a situation, where you just have to put a bullet in someone's face. But lets also be honest and say that part of the problem, if you accept that such a problem exists, is that a significant portion of the community is specifically tryig to "not play DayZ". They do not lose anything appreciable when they die, they do not have to struggle to survive, they are not lost or alone. They are generally farming the game rather than playing the game.

Their goal, probably, is to log on to farm equipment, to kill people with their friends while playing as much outside the initial game mechanics as possible.

Now, I sort of expect this observation to not go down very well with some, in part because its a truthfull observation and a description of how alot of people are playing the game. People really don't like being called out on what they're doing, especially when they have visions of themselves as "hardcore gamers"(whatever the hell that means).

I do not have a solution prepackaged. I am aware that many will say "this isn't a problem that needs fixing".

Personally, I admit, I think the game would be better if fewer players were involved in this type of behvaiour. If it were impossible to "avoid the consequence of playing DayZ". Consequences of permadeath should apply to all. I am not against clans, or social gaming. Frankly, I relish in the opportunity to take them on. But I do think that if your clan was "hypothetically wiped out in a confrontation", then your clan's equipment should, like your clan and your single player life "be practically wiped out". Have to start again from scratch. Keep your social ties. Lose all your stuff. To the victor go the spoils. Same as everyone else.

Discuss.

Edited August 11, 2012 by ACow

[h3retic 224]

i agree with all uve said except for this: Disorientation/isolation: Some people just come right out and say they don't want this. Starting alone, unarmed, unsure, vulnerable on a beach. Having to find survivors. What kind of sucky game is this! I want to be able to start immediately with my (preferably well armed)pre-arranged friends!

This is dayz. if u want to haev preset characters, u can play arma 2 or ACE mod, or w.e other mod but not dayz. having nothing in beginning is core to dayz. it is all about spawning on the shore and finding all the stuff by urself since the zombie apocalypsis "happened suddenly" so to speak.

[Seanyboy360 39]

I hope rocket takes some things that are big from War Z and implements somethings. Not the carebear stuff I mean how once you die on the character you can't play on it for hours thing. Because otherwise you can just run around with no worries and get reequipped. I hope rocket exceeds my expectations for the standalone.

[ACow 102]

i agree with all uve said except for this: Disorientation/isolation: Some people just come right out and say they don't want this. Starting alone, unarmed, unsure, vulnerable on a beach. Having to find survivors. What kind of sucky game is this! I want to be able to start immediately with my (preferably well armed)pre-arranged friends!

This is dayz. if u want to haev preset characters, u can play arma 2 or ACE mod, or w.e other mod but not dayz. having nothing in beginning is core to dayz. it is all about spawning on the shore and finding all the stuff by urself since the zombie apocalypsis "happened suddenly" so to speak.

Hi h3retic,

Just for the record, because I think there's been a bit of a misinterpretation. I like/want the isolation/disorientation. I am making the observation that many people are trying to get around it, and openly say they don't want it.

[ezay75 57]

Hello and thank you for your well written post. I will answer very shortly, not because I don't think your post doesn't deserve more, but because I think you're missing the simplicity of why most people end up "not playing DayZ".

That game may be the first ever to really feature a multiplayer survival experience. Zombies really are a secondary feature, only a background. The game is about survival of the fittest. So what are the people trying to do ? Winning the game. How do you win a game that has no goal ? By beating its principle. The game is about survival, so survivors organised to survive the best way they can.

It really is as simple as that for most survivors adopting behaviors you described (which totally apply to me).

[AryanBoogeyman 185]

OP - This is one of the best things I've seen on this forum.

Well said.

I too see these issues as inter-connected and stemming from an entirely foreign idea of what DayZ is - or should be.

Playing DayZ to not play DayZ is just brilliant.

Oh, so true.

[LulzGamez 17]

i agree with all uve said except for this: Disorientation/isolation: Some people just come right out and say they don't want this. Starting alone, unarmed, unsure, vulnerable on a beach. Having to find survivors. What kind of sucky game is this! I want to be able to start immediately with my (preferably well armed)pre-arranged friends!

This is dayz. if u want to haev preset characters, u can play arma 2 or ACE mod, or w.e other mod but not dayz. having nothing in beginning is core to dayz. it is all about spawning on the shore and finding all the stuff by urself since the zombie apocalypsis "happened suddenly" so to speak.

I don't think HE was saying that, but more it's the attitude of those who log on to "not play DayZ".

[ACow 102]

Firstly, let me say thanks for the kind and respectable responses :)

Ezay75:

That game may be the first ever to really feature a multiplayer survival experience. Zombies really are a secondary feature, only a background. The game is about survival of the fittest. So what are the people trying to do ? Winning the game. How do you win a game that has no goal ? By beating its principle. The game is about survival, so survivors organised to survive the best way they can.

It really is as simple as that for most survivors adopting behaviors you described (which totally apply to me).

And hence why I'm not necessarily going to prescribe an answer. I don't pretend there is one answer, nor do I pretend all the community wants the same thing.

I do find it ironic however, that in a game which has in some way become great because of losing resources on death, size and isolation, random encounters, severely finite resources, that a good portion of the community has taken it to ensure that they want their game to involve:

a) not losing resources on death

B) not being isolated and having quick transport as much as possible

c) non-randomness of encounters (i.e only with friends and only on organised raids with said friends, killing everyone else because they have no need for them given their play style and preferences).

d) ensuring that they and their friends always have the best gear and in easy and plentiful supply(i.e through farming/server jumping).

Is this the game people want? I don't know, maybe. Some definitely, some definitely not.

I think a strong part of it is that these people like the game not because its DayZ, but because its DayZ for everyone BUT THEM.

Is it possible for a game to be genuinely popular if this kind of thing wasn't possible? I dunno. Maybe we'd find people would leave pretty quickly if playing DayZ meant you had to actually "play DayZ" instead of "log on to pre-arranged meeting with friends, stop off at fully-stocked-gun-shop-camp, take taxi to hunt people for sport, server hop to restock all weapons at already known locations, wash rinse repeat....". Maybe we'll find people tire of such antics and move on eventually after the initial popularity boom.

But the way I see it, we currently have two games:

DayZ: Zombie apocalypse survivial simulator

and

DayZ: Server hopping, item farming, meet with friends to go people hunting/pubstomping with no consequences/attention paid to the great and unique dayz mechanics.

They just happen to share the same servers.

I am, I admit, putting out the idea that perhaps group 1 would enjoy DayZ more if group 2 weren't there.

I think group 2 would REALLY hate it if group 1 wasn't there.

/hackers aside as group 3.

[Dingus (DayZ) 429]

Just about everything you bring up is exacerbated by duping or bug exploiting. I believe when standalone lauches or is finished, much of this should be resolved.

People saving loot on their friends body isn't particularly offensive. Someone will be looting it, and so your friends do. Your new spawn could be a new person joining them as far as RP goes. I believe it is the current state of gear inflation that makes the recovery of items seem so much worse than it really is.

You have a clear point on scavenging and loot maps however, and accessing data outside of the game has been a problem on gaming for a long time. You can go back to when strategy guides were first introduced. What else is a strategy guide than a "how to" guide for all the bosses in the game? My point is that this is kind of a given, not that is depreciates the experience of Day Z any less.

As far as isolation, I think I mentioned this in a thread before, but you will be hard-pressed to get most people to forego their external friendships when entering a game. If I were told I can not arrange to meet my friend in game, I simply would not play. Day Z can be very much a social game and a social experience and I would want to share those with the people I play with.

Social spontaneity is important, and I think people looking for the "experience" are not "shoot on sight" folk. I love the moments I bump into a stranger and we don't have to duel it out. I believe the game right now, the mod, is not in a state to encourage this, and as a result, there's a lot of shooting going on. I want to believe the standalone will have more "experience" to deliver, and maybe convert some PKs. A big reason for all the killing on sight is a lack of structured goals, which are not typical of a sandbox, but I think true sandbox lovers are the minority in the gaming populace.

[markevens 15]

Once I got my first tent my world changed from one of scraping by to survive to one of thriving, and that ruined the game.

I no longer feared death or loosing my gear. In fact, I shoved all my gear into the tent and went out with just a pistol, hatchet, knife, matches, and canteen. I headed for the nearest hospital and instead of getting 2 morphines, I grabbed every blood bag, morphine, bandage I could (and a few epi-pens).

After dropping all that in my tent, I hit up all the nearby supermarkets, getting a good stock of ammo, matches, handguns, beens and soda, and another tent.

Now there is nothing else to do but raid NWAF. It doesn't matter if I die because all my vital gear is in my tents and the loot I can get from there is well worth the risk (oh yeah, there is no risk anymore because all my shit is in my tent).

And this is playing on a single server. People server hopping to stockpile high end gear from NWAF so they can dump it back in their home server tents completely break the system.

Tents remove any consequence of death. At first I was so happy when I got my tent (I can finally thrive!) but the tension I felt up until then was completely gone. I honestly think the single most beneficial thing rocket could to better the game would be to remove tents.

Also barbed wire. Fuck that shit.

Edited August 14, 2012 by markevens

[Virfortis 111]

People who play DayZ to not play DayZ are the clans with VOIP, the sniper kill farming, the item duping, hacking, etc. I'm sorry if you're used to talking with your buddies, but do it in Direct Communication, and push to have Rocket introduce group radios with channels. Any form of metagaming just makes the game easier. So in essence, the carebears are actually the ones who hoard loot to circumvent the permadeath and metagame via TS/Vent so they don't have to deal with being actually IN DayZ.

If your mentality of DayZ is that "it's just a game" you're doing it really, really wrong. DayZ is an experience, and boiling yourself down just to make the game's intellect requirement easier does nothing but hurt you, the player. CoD is a game, WoW is a game, DayZ is an experience.

Edited August 11, 2012 by Virfortis

[SystemiK 366]

Probably hands down the most interesting, thought provoking thread I have seen on this forum since I joined back in may. It pains me to even think about which group I fall into...

[Zymi 64]

Well said OP.

Agree with all.

[BunnyHillPro 111]

This is by far one of the best reads I've had on the forums. Everything was very well put, and I couldn't agree more. I wish the dev team would hire you.

[bazbake 456]

So many beans. I whine about this stuff so much my catchphrase is "get rid of tents and vehicle storage." If you ever wanted to see the true carebear mentality behind DayZ, check out the LayZ's with their item hoarding.

By the way, it's getting worse. Three days ago, I ran across a tent with 10 tents in it in hours of gameplay. Tonight I ran across four fully-loaded tents just running in a straight line in about an hour and a half of gametime. This is getting seriously ridiculous.

It's one thing to hold your buddy's loot and guard his body until he gets back. If he died by sniper fire or by zombie, it's at least a challenge. But tent hoarding just lets you keep loot death after death after death with no real consequences for your failures.

[ACow 102]

Markevens: Its funny you should mention it, because the very same thing largely happened to me when I found my first tent as well.

"Now I can stock my tent, and walk around raiding places with impugnity!"

I've discovered several tents across several servers, all always well stocked, just while skulking around the forests. It does take away from the fear of it all somewhat, knowing that there's all this equipment just permanently lying out there.

It does make me seriously wonder...while a balance needs to be made between lootability/destruction after death/killing someone, I think its pretty obvious that the current state of tents is unsustainable and balanced far too much in favour of permanence after death.

Good news though, all the computer science/game design/stat/math/econ guys might have already realised one little factoid. The predictable outcome given the current state of things is the map becomes absolutely covered with lots of tents with lots of items in them. Its only natural given a finite space, the respawning of items, and their relative permanancy. The equilibrium might settle somewhere between their creation/destruction, but I'm relatively certain that's not going to be at a place that makes Rocket or the community comfortable, meaning the inevitable outcome is either rolling wipes of tents/items, or a change of the mechanic in the future....

[puppetworx 474]

I was about to agree with you wholeheartedly OP, but then I read this:

Loose all your stuff.

Which totally discredited everything that you's said prior.

[spammy@live.de 19]

My beans. Take them.

[GodOfGrain 191]

Hmm you observation is correct. The reasons behind this are:

1) Flaws in some mechanics. E.g. loot system allowing farming etc.

2) Duping

3) Not enough tools to create endgame content

4) TS > Internal communication

4) can't be fixed, the rest if hopefully just a matter of time.

I don't think it makes sense to blame the community for a certain type of behavior.

In the end, people want to be "successfull" in what they are doing.

If the gamedesign is facilitating a "non-dayZ experience" than the design has to improve further.

/// Well written, but could have been a lot shorter with the same content.

[Lady Kyrah 1110]

I totally agree with the OP, and i'll give you an example that i had as a minecraft server admin.

I'vebeen running a vanilla/no rules server for a long time and i sometimes read the chat log, those are usually the things that i see.

-Why did you kill me!

-Why did you destroy my things!

-Who stole my things!

-*Disconnect because it's night*

-*Disconnect in combat*

There was all kinds of drama going on back then but it stemmed from one major thing. In minecraft's case.

-Some players "got" what the server was about: That it was going to be harsh that you had to hide and be very careful around other players.

-Some players came with the assumption that this was going to be like "any" minecraft server, where you build giant things, where death is just an annoyance and where admins punish evil doers.

Of course, players will try to dodge perma death, loot loss, and will try to exploit the loot system, because that's annoying. What makes the game annoying is also what makes it fun, but it requires EFFORT. And we are in a society that reward those that are maximizing output while minimizing input.

There is also strong influences from other games and movies. People expect things to work in a certain way, the same way sniper rifle users in games expect their target to drop from a single shot to the head. There is a lot of "movie logic" and "videogame logic" behind all this.

Lastly video games are a consumer good. A video game is assumed to be like a piece of candy, you buy it and get enjoyment from it.

DayZ in this regard is more like a BDSM session or a boxing match, it's going to hurt.

Adventure in the real world hurt and is generally unpleasant. That day you flew to Tokyo without knowing a single word of japanese, then this random guy in the street led you to a creepy alley and lend you a bed for the night. This is stressful, but it creates vivid memories.

Adventure is usually MISadventure, it is something inflicted to you against your will, rather than something you really wanted to put yourself into.

[AryanBoogeyman 185]

The current state of the Alhpa does seem to me to lean heavily to the permanence of gear (ie: semi-permanent storage - tents) and detracts enormously from the whole "survival" theme as originally intended.

As Dingus said it is made wholly untenable with duping and server hopping exploits.

+1 for the utter removal of tents or deletion of all accumulated gear upon character death. Make this game HARD Rocket.

Some of us want a real challenge, not a rehash of almost every FPS currently on the market with zombies thrown in for style.

Edited August 11, 2012 by AryanBoogeyman

[sxcblood 36]

there's tomuch text in this fucking topic

[jarshie 6]

i wish i could create another character in a new area. not look at anything and just survive in the game, like not using anything external of the game. my friends and i are still pretty low end but i would rather survive than stockpile the best of loots and forget im in a survival no holds bared game

Edited August 11, 2012 by jarshie

[nucleqrwinter@gmail.com 156]

My thoughts exactly, OP.

I believe DayZ would be a better experience without tents/vehicle storage. You shouldn't even be able to loot your own body, actually.

Once your stuff is lost, it should be REALLY lost. Only then would it become a stronger experience.

[CLewis 31]

Totally agree. Great post!