Social Observation: Playing DayZ to not play DayZ

[The Sad Panda 113]

"I think the point is that Dayz can offer an amazing experience, as a sandbox survival game. But people being people always take the line of least resistance. If you immerse yourself in the game and play it "as intended*" its incredible. The more you undermine that the more it becomes something else. It's still fun but in a different way, and certainly in a less stressful way.

The first week or two I played Dayz were frustrating, but they were scary! The uncertaintity , the fear and the confusion made for an incredible experience. The first time I encountered another survivor, incredible. The first time I killed a guy I was riddled with guilt. Feelings no other game has ever managed to create.

One day i got lost for two hours and gradually worked out my orienteering skills and found my destination, it was amazingly rewarding. The first time I stumbled across a vehicle - a real highlight. It goes on and on.

But new players have guides, out of game maps, loot maps, vehicle spawn maps. They loose so much by not diving in at the deep end and experiencing all of that.

* As Intended. Well who can say what is intended ? Well Rocket for one. If you read what he says about the game you will see its not supposed to be easy! And if you look at the mechanics he has introduced... you start to get an idea of what is "intended". For instance direct chat. I've written whole threads on just this subject , the jist of which of which is , if you play just using direct chat a world of amazing game-play experiences occur. Things I've never experienced in ANY other game. But why would you use it ? TS allows you to talk to your mates anywhere and using direct chat only puts you at a huge tactical disadvantage. But obviously Rocket intends people to use direct chat otherwise why bother restricting in game communication in this way.

We may just end up agreeing to disagree here, but I don't agree with immersion = starting solo with no social ties. Radios aren't actually implemented in the game yet, but is it a complete stretch of the imagination to believe that external VOIP = Radios? (Don't get me wrong, REAL radios would be awesome in-game, would add a new dimension to new spawns, finding a radio to get in contact with your group, or spying on other people's channels...delicious). When I first started this mod, I already had real friends to play it with, and I can say without a doubt that it didn't diminish the experience one bit. We started off trying to locate eachother, with only the starlight and street signs to guide our path - no map, we've been exploring, went on raids, we've been shot and killed - everything.

Is it the exact same as starting solo? No, obviously not.

Does that make it less of an experience? No, just different.

When we play the game, we do so in a fairly serious manner, in that we don't go herp derping through town at full speed because we know we have backup, we crawl through the sidestreets, check our corners, and get excited for good loot just the same as a solo player.

Now on the matter of direct coms, it's pretty much along the same lines as the in-game map...it's clunky and immersion breaking in itself. If Rocket really wants in-game voip to be the primary mode of communication (I haven't heard him mention it in any of his youtube interviews, maybe i just wasn't paying attention / haven't read it on these forums) then his team has some serious work to do in the standalone, because as it is it's far too clunky for its intended use. Don't get me wrong, the system works perfectly at it's intended purpose - communication in Arma II, but it unrealistic and immersion breaking in DayZ.

Should an enemy player be able to hear my whispers from within directCom range (what is it, like 80m?) when they're intended to be to the person right next to me, in as hushed a tone as possible? I don't think so.

Should I be able to broadcast to the entire server via sidechat? I don't think we come with a built in radio, so probably not. It's a lesser of two evils type argument, with my vote going to external Voip. Sure, I still direct-com chat to unknown players that I see, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, but the system needs alot of polish before it becomes accepted on a large scale.

Also, @Honest Bill

Exactly, and let me reiterate that I'm not trying to be difficult or single minded with my posts, I do try to look at them at every which way possible, which probably makes me come off as inflammatory or confrontational, which is far from my intent.

[khaoimon 1]

To preface I've only played for about a week and never had another player speak to me. I know lots of people that play but have yet to play with them as I don't want my noobness to get them killed. But I have an observation about your observations.

Ignoring permadeath and hacks it would seem your post is an observation of the redevelopment of society. It would seem to me in a post apocalyptic society people would seek out those they know that survived and cling to them, try to find a group that is trust worthy to survive with, establish a safe area to keep things they scavenged, and attempt to get past the point of surviving meal to meal. It is these tendencies that lead to the development of farming and societies in cities in the first place. To expect people to not gravitate towards this would be against our nature. Whether this leads to a great game or great end game is another question.

However, having read the forums of one of my guilds in another game their server has proceeded to a farther point in society. Rival clans and bases have been established. There are midnight raids for supplies-clan warefare. Societal survival of the fitest. The strongest swell in numbers as people flock to survive and then burst into civil war as internal struggles develop.

The survival aspect of this game is so raw that it has lead to an exact mirror of human development. The directions this could be taken in are overwhelming-and that's not to say that it should not be made harder for this to happen.

In terms of my personal experience as I said I have yet to have any contact with anyone. I know this is a little long, but some back story is necessary for my point. I saw someone last night, he didn't respond to me and quietly waited for me to approach close enough to flee out a back door.

My second day I starved to death after not finding food in 3 cities and not having matches to make a fire. So I carry enough to survive for almost an entire run of the map. I don't have a tent, but I wont be starving. I have 2 bandages at all times, 1 of each important medical supply, and drink equal to my food. I have a sniper rifle and a silenced assault rifle. Even without tents or friends other than really wanting nvg I have no reason to scavenge or really do anything other than make my own fun.

I have avoided populated servers after my second non-zombie death which was from an unknown player. I was inside a large building in a somewhat obscure town on a server with only three people logged in. I was careful and saw no signs of anyone inside or out. I checked my back frequently. Yet a single gunshot from an unknown place took my life. Having had no contact with other players I would almost rather be shot in the back with someone I am with than to have died for an unknown reason from a shot from an unknown place.

But now, that I have everything but nvg, I have logged into my guilds server, without telling them or getting in mumble, because I know it is a pvp heavy server. I'm ready to die and I'm ready to kill simply because I am passed the point of survival playing as a loner.

I think, completely ignoring tents, without large changes to survival, that small clan warfare is where excitement will be found. At some point I can see tents and stockpiling to be a fix for the lack of excitement in survival alone. Crawling through the same towns to repickup the same items to be able to trek to the good items will at a point become the same grind as gearing a new character in typical mmos. I guess in the end my point, with my limited experience, is I agree that both lone and group survival need some work to maintain that heart pounding excitement we all felt the first time we logged in-but players will gravitate towards building societies because it is our nature. I don't think I am agreeing or disagreeing with you, just my observations built on yours.

[The Sad Panda 113]

I don't know what sucks more. The fact that there seems to be never ending loopholes to destroy every game or the fact that people already can name the next one before it even exists.

I wish people would just stop breaking games but that will never happen. Just goes to show that you can never have a true sandbox, there have to be some rules and limitations.

In security. if you fail to plan, you're planning to fail.

Better to brainstorm ideas and solutions to problems now than to have a headache trying to fix them when they're actual problems.

With current technology, you're right, it's pretty much impossible to get a 100% genuine sandbox, we can only try to make the one we have better and better

[Honest Bill 37]

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Also, @Honest Bill

Exactly, and let me reiterate that I'm not trying to be difficult or single minded with my posts, I do try to look at them at every which way possible, which probably makes me come off as inflammatory or confrontational, which is far from my intent.

No i can definitely see where you're coming from.. Allthe angles have to be considered first, and it's important not to make assumptions and ensure thorough analyses.. Theories are made to be shot down haha.

Fortunatley for us, the DAYZ devs seem to appreciate that and i feel they are looking at the game from a similar stand point.. That's why i'm pretty excited for the standalone.

[Strategos (DayZ) 190]

@Sad Panda

Well its not just about being on your own but that is part of it.

"When I first started this mod, I already had real friends to play it with, and I can say without a doubt that it didn't diminish the experience one bit. "

Actually you can't because you didn't try it without friends on TS.

As soon as I started getting on TS with my mates it changed the game completely. When new guys join us I can tell they are experiencing nothing like what I did.

Probably easier just to read what I posted on this subject before , save my fingers anyway. http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/10709-dayz-as-an-antigame-wall-of-text-warning/

Edited August 11, 2012 by Strategos

[The Sad Panda 113]

@Strategos

Like I said, I think we'll have to agree to disagree on the subject. I got the experience I was looking for from DayZ, and never once did I believe that the experience would be equal to or better if I had been playing solo. You're right though, I did choose my words poorly. I can't say that my experiences are on the same level as someone who started playing solo, because they're two completely different experiences that just can't be compared.

I wouldn't trade my experiences for the world, even if they are somehow lesser because of how we made them.

[bazbake 456]

@TheSadPanda

Most of your issues revolve around the fact that tents are convenient and you really like them. Although you do pose questions about further exploits and code shenanigans, I'll start by stating the obvious solutions:

1. Remove vehicle storage completely. Reserve it for tents.
   
2. Get rid of tents completely. If you die, you lose everything you own.
   

But if we leave tents, I have one response to people not "punishing" players for filling a teammate's tent with loot and risking losing it all: "Use your own tent!" Why would it be more fair to keep your own stuff if you can't even find a tent than it would be to lose everything when you die. If you really want to be safe, leave one player behind to guard your stuff while everyone else loots. It's an exploit, but it also discourages hoarding and server hopping and allows for consequences for permadeath.

But if you spend the extra 30 dollars to buy a second character whose sole job is to keep a tent alive on the server, someone else had a very good idea about only allowing players to put things into their tents.

Basically, tents are cheap and easy mode and should be removed altogether. But if they won't be removed, then make it so that they can't be used as extra lives and a work-around to avoid permadeath.

[CBlazer 8]

Great discussion. Regarding "isolation"... I strongly prefer to find my real-life friends in-game and play with them. For me, that is most of the fun. If you made a game (any game) and told me, "Here's this amazing multiplayer game, but you have to play it with strangers, and it is exceptionally difficult or unlikely to find your real-life friends in the game." I would say, "No thanks." Even if that's the reality of a sudden apocalypse scenario, it's not the game I want to play. My wife also would never touch a game where it was difficult or unlikely, by design, to play it with me.

Some in this thread have suggested that it is antisocial to play with real-life friends, because it tends to shut out potential random socialization. I disagree, because playing with friends is another form of socialization. One is not better or worse than the other.

What's really happening in Day Z, in my opinion, is that once you have a group of a certain size, the "safety in numbers" survival need is satisfied, and the risk of adding strangers starts to outweigh the reward. If you want survivors to interact more, I don't think isolation from out-of-game friendships is the right answer. Rather, you should look carefully at the risk/reward of "safety in numbers." I've often wondered... what if the zombies were a real, serious threat? How would that change the social dynamic? ("I could kill/ignore this newly spawned player, but I might be overwhelmed by zombies. I can't take them alone.")

You can also provide players with a wide spectrum of tools and activities suited to different levels of socialization. Forced isolation, though, does not sound good to me.

[The Sad Panda 113]

@TheSadPanda

Most of your issues revolve around the fact that tents are convenient and you really like them. Although you do pose questions about further exploits and code shenanigans, I'll start by stating the obvious solutions:

1. Remove vehicle storage completely. Reserve it for tents.
   
2. Get rid of tents completely. If you die, you lose everything you own.
   

But if we leave tents, I have one response to people not "punishing" players for filling a teammate's tent with loot and risking losing it all: "Use your own tent!" Why would it be more fair to keep your own stuff if you can't even find a tent than it would be to lose everything when you die. If you really want to be safe, leave one player behind to guard your stuff while everyone else loots. It's an exploit, but it also discourages hoarding and server hopping and allows for consequences for permadeath.

But if you spend the extra 30 dollars to buy a second character whose sole job is to keep a tent alive on the server, someone else had a very good idea about only allowing players to put things into their tents.

Basically, tents are cheap and easy mode and should be removed altogether. But if they won't be removed, then make it so that they can't be used as extra lives and a work-around to avoid permadeath.

I'll be completely honest, your post confused me a bit, so I'm going to try to reply as best I can. Please forgive any misunderstandings that I may have.

Yes, I enjoy tents, I'm not trying to hide that fact. They provide alot of functionality to the game that allows players to further advance their goals. Unfortunately, like many such as yourself have pointed out, they diminish the effect of "Permadeath" in DayZ. Despite this, they provide a sense of permanence, a way to begin rebuilding a shattered world if you will. If you happen to have viewed Rocket's SideStrafe or Machinima interviews, you'd notice that this is one of the "End-game" options that he would like to open up in the future of DayZ.

To your first point, I don't actually see how this would address the issue of players re-gearing after death, which is an issue - that I agree with you on. I think a fact that many people ignore though, is that inventory, both in tents and vehicles, opens up more gameplay options.If you've read my previous posts on this thread, I can't really think of any way else to make that clearer, you either see my point and acknowledge it, or completely disagree with it to a point that I can't convince you otherwise, so I'm not going to go into much more detail on it.

To your second point, I've also already addressed this and how it would be completely detrimental to many forms of team-play, almost to the point where it's game-breaking. I've mentioned organized group play, but what about all the traders and merchants? The removal of external storage invalidates their play styles as well. The way I see it, is removing tents would be a step backwards in terms of gameplay. (And no matter how many times people quote Rocket's "Anti-game" line, it's undeniable that this is still a game, you launch it via the executable file and use it for entertainment value). I don't think you realize just how much external storage does for LEGITIMATE gameplay, in my personal opinion it completely outweighs the cheating death aspect. Like I said, cheating death is something that needs to be addressed (not just storage, but Alt+F4 as well), but it absolutely cannot be a knee-jerk reaction because part of the playerbase is upset. Knee-Jerk reactions kill games, plain and simple.

Moving onto your second paragraph, this is where I became confused. I don't know exactly what you're addressing here, or how having a guard on your tents is an exploit. Perhaps you can clarify?

I also already addressed the matter on your third mini-paragraph, because

1. If only the owner of the tent could deposit / withdrawl, it essentially makes the tent a bank, which makes it immune to raiding, which is (at least in my opinion) against the nature of the game

2. If only the owner of the tent could deposit, but others could withdraw, you still don't solve the problem of players re-gearing at tents. A team would go out scavenging, give all their items to the tent owner to deposit, and when he's finished he logs off. The only way to counter this would be to camp their tents 24/7 and wait for an opportunity to kill them

I don't believe tents are "cheap" or "easy-mode" by their nature, I think you're just ignoring all the benefits they bring to the game. You do have a point though, which I have agreed with multiple times when replying to multiple people, tents shouldn't be an extra-life. The problem is how to solve it without decimating multiple playstyles. I really can't make it any clearer than that.

[UsuallyFriendly 10]

Great Post, dont forget to mention all the duping!!

And if you want the "true dayz experience" i suggest meeting someone on teamspeak and playing a very low-pop server (under 10). you'll avoid hackers and exploiters and can focus on the scavenging and zombie killing :)

[jackcrow 129]

I have to disagree because there really isn't a "right" way to play DayZ. You are put on a island, alone, with little supplies to last you very long and you are expected to survive. How you survive is completely up to you, whether that be finding other survivors or even bandits to create a clan and combine your efforts to stockpile goods or shoot anyone you see in the face and steal their loot. Either way you are surviving and thus playing the game exactly how it should be played, your way.

Your argument leans far to much to say that is a right way and only one right way. Fortunately you are wrong.

[Lawlmonster 2]

Since I've only been playing with one other person, tents have been a great way of giving us some feeling of permanence and territory on the server we play. I can understand how people involved with constant clan warfare, or purposefully duping, would hinder the original intent, but some of us aren't storing two of each military grade weapon in multiple locations around multiple servers. If everyone's so worried about removing the thirty to sixty minutes it takes to fully equip a new character, why not just make tent and vehicle inventories smaller, and why does any of this even matter until the duping problems are absolved (which they won't be, not until some fashion of standalone)? Tent and vehicle storage gives me something to achieve, and has given my pal and I some interesting new objectives when playing. Of course, we don't shoot everything as soon as it enters our cross hairs either, so if people are having difficulty adjusting or finding something to do, maybe they could use a little creativity and approach the game differently?

[ACow 102]

Thanks to everyone for a relatively deep and mature discussion so far. I admit I didn't log on this morning expecting to see this many responses. I couldn't possibly respond to everyone, but I can offer a few canned responses:

• To the "'agree with the OP"
  

Many thanks, I figured I would probably some tone of agreement with a lot of people :)

• To the "respectfully disagree with the OP"
  

Also many thanks. As many of you are pointing out, there's actually a lot of complex issues here, and not everyone wants to play the game as I want to play it.

• To the "harden the fuck up"/"leave my banditry alone crowd"
  

Read the original post again. You're either projecting your own insecurities, or you're the people on who I'm making these observations. Indeed, I point out people are avoiding the game mechanics in place to specifically to make the game easier and like other generic games. I like it hard. I want player killing in the game. In fact, I specifically point out that I want you to suffer the consequences when I kill YOU in the same way as when YOU kill ME. At no point do I suggest stopping bandits or changing things to specifically target bandits. Now, for the players who think that "banditry"="avoiding all unique DayZ game mechanics/farming", I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

• To the "don't tell me what DayZ is supposed to be" crowd
  

I limited my prescriptions deliberately in the original post, because I'm not proposing to tell people what the game SHOULD be like, merely make the observation on how it IS. And how it IS, is that alot of people are coming across DayZ, proclaiming its greatness, and then spending their entire game trying to play it largely with the same consequences and mechanics as most other multiplayer games. Now part of the reason I don't jump out there with my prescriptions is because I honestly consider it an open question as to whether the game could in fact survive if rocket tried or succeeded in stopping people playing it like every other game. As many people point out, those games have in some sense become like that for a reason. For all of most people's elitism and professions to the contrary, its how most people and clans want to play games: without consequences, without stark resource limits, with friends, with quick gratification. I would like it the other way, I admit that, but I also accept that it might not be commercially viable, and that's without even touching upon the game design issues, or "what rocket wants" issues.

• For the "leave my tents alone" people
  

I'm sorry, I don't know how to break this to you. They're going to be changed. How can I be so certain? Because its basic math/game design. Tents stay permanently. Things in tents stay permanently. If you have something that exists permanently beyond player death, and items respawning, and new tents coming in, then tents will just multiply until their rate of destruction equals their rate of placement. This is both going to increase the amount of items the server needs to keep track of, and the number of tents. Indeed, given the mechanics of DayZ, tents and items will likely just gradually increase in density over time. I do not know rocket, but I've read a couple of his posts, and I think he's smart enough to figure this out. I do not propose to dictate to rocket how to run his game, but if I was a betting man, I know where I would place my money...

• The "meta-gaming/realism" issues
  

This is interesting. I don't think we can realistically stop meta gaming. So I say keep your clans, teamspeaks, pre-arranged meetups, social networks, etc. What can be changed are the mechanics in the game: destroying/transferring items on death. I've seen a few people raise objections to the likes of destruction of tents on the grounds that it would be hard for clans to store countless items because Joe died in a raid and now Joe's tent is gone. I say good. Good that your clan now has to think about who goes/dies/who to protect. Good that your clan now has some consequences to losing people on raids. Oh, joe isn't going to want to just sit around and protect the camp/loot? Welcome to the consequences everyone else faces....

The realism/game balance argument against item/object despawning faces one big problem. Where is the realism in being shot in the face, dying, then running back to your camp to restock? Where is the realism in spawning loot? At some stage, realism must take a back seat to game design.

Of course, all this rests on what is possible, what rocket and the community want the game to be.

Who knows, perhaps when the standalone comes out, people like me can make a DayZ mod on top of DayZ :P

Edited August 12, 2012 by ACow

[AryanBoogeyman 185]

Thanks to everyone for a relatively deep and mature discussion so far. I admit I didn't log on this morning expecting to see this many responses. I couldn't possibly respond to everyone, but I can offer a few canned responses:

• To the "'agree with the OP"
  

Many thanks, I figured I would probably some tone of agreement with a lot of people :)

• To the "respectfully disagree with the OP"
  

Also many thanks. As many of you are pointing out, there's actually a lot of complex issues here, and not everyone wants to play the game as I want to play it.

• To the "harden the fuck up"/"leave my banditry alone crowd"
  

Read the original post again. You're either projecting your own insecurities, or you're the people on who I'm making these observations. Indeed, I point out people are avoiding the game mechanics in place to specifically to make the game easier and like other generic games. I like it hard. I want player killing in the game. In fact, I specifically point out that I want you to suffer the consequences when I kill YOU in the same way as when YOU kill ME. At no point do I suggest stopping bandits or changing things to specifically target bandits. Now, for the players who think that "banditry"="avoiding all unique DayZ game mechanics/farming", I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

• To the "don't tell me what DayZ is supposed to be" crowd
  

I limited my prescriptions deliberately in the original post, because I'm not proposing to tell people what the game SHOULD be like, merely make the observation on how it IS. And how it IS, is that alot of people are coming across DayZ, proclaiming its greatness, and then spending their entire game trying to play it largely with the same consequences and mechanics as most other multiplayer games. Now part of the reason I don't jump out there with my prescriptions is because I honestly consider it an open question as to whether the game could in fact survive if rocket tried or succeeded in stopping people playing it like every other game. As many people point out, those games have in some sense become like that for a reason. For all of most people's elitism and professions to the contrary, its how most people and clans want to play games: without consequences, without stark resource limits, with friends, with quick gratification. I would like it the other way, I admit that, but I also accept that it might not be commercially viable, and that's without even touching upon the game design issues, or "what rocket wants" issues.

• For the "leave my tents alone" people
  

I'm sorry, I don't know how to break this to you. They're going to be changed. How can I be so certain? Because its basic math/game design. Tents stay permanently. Things in tents stay permanently. If you have something that exists permanently beyond player death, and items respawning, and new tents coming in, then tents will just multiply until their rate of destruction equals their rate of placement. This is both going to increase the amount of items the server needs to keep track of, and the number of tents. Indeed, given the mechanics of DayZ, tents and items will likely just gradually increase in density over time. I do not know rocket, but I've read a couple of his posts, and I think he's smart enough to figure this out. I do not propose to dictate to rocket how to run his game, but if I was a betting man, I know where I would place my money...

• The "meta-gaming/realism" issues
  

This is interesting. I don't think we can realistically stop meta gaming. So I say keep your clans, teamspeaks, pre-arranged meetups, social networks, etc. What can be changed are the mechanics in the game: destroying/transferring items on death. I've seen a few people raise objections to the likes of destruction of tents on the grounds that it would be hard for clans to store countless items because Joe died in a raid and now Joe's tent is gone. I say good. Good that your clan now has to think about who goes/dies/who to protect. Good that your clan now has some consequences to losing people on raids. Oh, joe isn't going to want to just sit around and protect the camp/loot? Welcome to the consequences everyone else faces....

The realism/game balance argument against item/object despawning faces one big problem. Where is the realism in being shot in the face, dying, then running back to your camp to restock? Where is the realism in spawning loot? At some stage, realism must take a back seat to game design.

Of course, all this rests on what is possible, what rocket and the community want the game to be.

Who knows, perhaps when the standalone comes out, people like me can make a DayZ mod on top of DayZ :P

^This man gets it. ^

Rocket has a chance to literally break the mould here.

Why would he want the same old-same old fps dynamic that is strangling the industry?

Change is inevitable. Radical change is preferable. Especially in an Alpha mod. Bring on a total global wipe with the next build as well as sweeping change to the storage/ loot system and let us test the hell out of it.

Now is the time to experiment with many different ideas, not re-hash the same tired old shit.

[sostronk 334]

Hire this man. I forget what its like to play with permadeath, since all I have to do is respawn and head to my tents/vehicles and rekit again. Tents you own should be destroyed immediately when you die. Vehicles should only be able to store Jerry Cans.

[Fear The Amish 40]

ok couple of things, this is an apocalypse simulator (or running =)) but its silly to think people wouldn't band together into groups and use that to their best advantage. and the VOIP thing... think about it this way they looted some walkie talkies ;). but the funnest times i have are with my clan rolling into a town with a car and a few atv's cleaning it out then hauling it back to base.

[AryanBoogeyman 185]

ok couple of things, this is an apocalypse simulator (or running =)) but its silly to think people wouldn't band together into groups and use that to their best advantage. and the VOIP thing... think about it this way they looted some walkie talkies ;). but the funnest times i have are with my clan rolling into a town with a car and a few atv's cleaning it out then hauling it back to base.

I agree with you, group play is a blast and shouldn't be penalized but the underlying system of gear storage/loot farming is warping the group dynamic and for me at least, diminishing the fun.

Many posters have already said this but it bears repeating.

With our collection of tents and vehicles permadeath no longer applies to me and it sucks the life right out of this game.

[Fear The Amish 40]

I agree with you, group play is a blast and shouldn't be penalized but the underlying system of gear storage/loot farming is warping the group dynamic and for me at least, diminishing the fun.

Many posters have already said this but it bears repeating.

With our collection of tents and vehicles permadeath no longer applies to me and it sucks the life right out of this game.

But if your not in a clan you don't see the crazy side of clan play. until hackers became an issue our home server was home to another clan. ever night both of us would go looting, and if we ran into each other it became a war over what ever city/place it was.

I remember we bother were raiding berezino we came from north them from south and there litterally was a 15-20 person fire fight going on between the buildings. it was NUTS, and this was before hacking was prevalent so most us just had akm's, m16a2, winnies you know mid tier weapons. basically neither side did the silly CoD combat of running and gunning it was little flank moves etc. and when they started losing to many people they pulled out because they didn't wanna lose the vehicles. but they left a few snipers so we ended up leaving for same reason.

THIS right here is the essence of a survival game, i started solo and got to the point were i was living easily for weeks. found a clan and we started building a "community" in game. its the evolution of a society after an apocalypse, and honestly on the tents thing think about it if someone in your "community" died the loot is redistributed to others in a r/l scenario. unless you make perma death you die and the game uninstalls then its not really perma death. i think the problem is most of you have only been playing for under a month and don't know what the game was like before hacking/duping became an issue because i remember when a DMR up was a RARE bird and the ammo was rare enough you only used it when you absolutely had to. game was a totally different place.

[AnnieGYG 32]

I don't think there is a right way or wrong way to play, didn't Rockets leaderboard on the front page used to be longest survived?

So surely outside of exploting/glitching/hacking, anything you choose to do to stay alive and "win" the game (ie getting your name on the leaderboard on the front page) is the way to play.

You might be able to stop others "winning" the game by shooting everyone in high traffic areas, but you're probably not going to be on the leaderboards yourself.

I don't know why everyone cries about their kills disapearing off their debug monitor when the only stat that counts is how long you have survivied.

[AryanBoogeyman 185]

But if your not in a clan you don't see the crazy side of clan play. until hackers became an issue our home server was home to another clan. ever night both of us would go looting, and if we ran into each other it became a war over what ever city/place it was.

I remember we bother were raiding berezino we came from north them from south and there litterally was a 15-20 person fire fight going on between the buildings. it was NUTS, and this was before hacking was prevalent so most us just had akm's, m16a2, winnies you know mid tier weapons. basically neither side did the silly CoD combat of running and gunning it was little flank moves etc. and when they started losing to many people they pulled out because they didn't wanna lose the vehicles. but they left a few snipers so we ended up leaving for same reason.

THIS right here is the essence of a survival game, i started solo and got to the point were i was living easily for weeks. found a clan and we started building a "community" in game. its the evolution of a society after an apocalypse, and honestly on the tents thing think about it if someone in your "community" died the loot is redistributed to others in a r/l scenario. unless you make perma death you die and the game uninstalls then its not really perma death. i think the problem is most of you have only been playing for under a month and don't know what the game was like before hacking/duping became an issue because i remember when a DMR up was a RARE bird and the ammo was rare enough you only used it when you absolutely had to. game was a totally different place.

Good point about large clan battles. I haven't been in a firefight that size yet and it sounds great! :D

True enough about my in-game duration. I would like to experience a scarcity of gear because as of now every second player I run into has a silenced M-4, AS50 - Ghillie combo.... I have all that shite back at camp and much more but just can't justify exploiting with the rest.

Just pointless to have a loot system at all IMO, lets just spawn everyone with the same gear in a three block radius within Cherno....

Rare loot should be rare and you should have to make a crtical decision about whether or not to expend your precious ammo. Otherwise we have what we have today - a generic fps atmosphere that frankly chafes me like woolen underwear.

Really no decision making is required at all at this point. I would like to see the scarcity of supplies the OP spoke of and see how it plays out because we have all seen how an over-abundance of supplies is working now.

[tjG3ftw436 17]

Thanks to everyone for a relatively deep and mature discussion so far. I admit I didn't log on this morning expecting to see this many responses. I couldn't possibly respond to everyone, but I can offer a few canned responses:

• For the "leave my tents alone" people
  

I'm sorry, I don't know how to break this to you. They're going to be changed. How can I be so certain? Because its basic math/game design. Tents stay permanently. Things in tents stay permanently. If you have something that exists permanently beyond player death, and items respawning, and new tents coming in, then tents will just multiply until their rate of destruction equals their rate of placement. This is both going to increase the amount of items the server needs to keep track of, and the number of tents. Indeed, given the mechanics of DayZ, tents and items will likely just gradually increase in density over time. I do not know rocket, but I've read a couple of his posts, and I think he's smart enough to figure this out. I do not propose to dictate to rocket how to run his game, but if I was a betting man, I know where I would place my money...

• The "meta-gaming/realism" issues
  

This is interesting. I don't think we can realistically stop meta gaming. So I say keep your clans, teamspeaks, pre-arranged meetups, social networks, etc. What can be changed are the mechanics in the game: destroying/transferring items on death. I've seen a few people raise objections to the likes of destruction of tents on the grounds that it would be hard for clans to store countless items because Joe died in a raid and now Joe's tent is gone. I say good. Good that your clan now has to think about who goes/dies/who to protect. Good that your clan now has some consequences to losing people on raids. Oh, joe isn't going to want to just sit around and protect the camp/loot? Welcome to the consequences everyone else faces....

The realism/game balance argument against item/object despawning faces one big problem. Where is the realism in being shot in the face, dying, then running back to your camp to restock? Where is the realism in spawning loot? At some stage, realism must take a back seat to game design.

Of course, all this rests on what is possible, what rocket and the community want the game to be.

Who knows, perhaps when the standalone comes out, people like me can make a DayZ mod on top of DayZ :P

Of course clans are going to object to instant tent destruction, having near infinite gear at their fingertips allows them to stay strong and not have to waste time getting gear for a killed squadmate. My friends and I don't care too much if one of us dies as we have extra guns and supplies at our base, all the freshly respawned guy has to do is make it back up north and boom he has an assault rifle, decent handgun, medical supplies and food. Takes the fun right out of the game if you ask me before when I was going solo I was actually scared of dieing and panicked at the thought of aggroing zed or finding a player. Now the only objective I have now is to find a light machine gun and an L85. Hell, we all agreed if we find a heli we were gonna just joy ride the hell out of it and shoot at people until we either run out of bullets and gas or get shot down. On the subject of duping sometimes its not the players fault but most of the time it is. We had a tent back in version 1.7.2.2 stocked with a DMR with 3 mags and some others things. When the 1.7.2.3 update came out the tent got locked as in anything put into it is deleted and anything taken from it is restored upon restart of the server no matter if saved or not, so free DMR and 3 mags three times a day, maybe more if random restarts occured. Luckily(in my opinion) the server failed to update properly to 1.7.2.4 and now we can't play on it. Another definite problem with people having so much gear is of course the hackers while some nuke and change people into animals some just spawn a shit ton of gear in crates. First time I hit the airfield I found a dead one, must've been bad because he died to zombies. Anyway AS50 with thermal, silenced PDW, every tool you can have, a coyote, camo clothing and a guille suit. This is only one example as I know many other people have found hacker crates and gotten things from silenced G36s to soldiers clothing.

Though if tents were destroyed instantly upon death I know my team and I would be a lot more careful and also I'd probably start to KoS, as of now I have only killed two people because they were dumb enough or unlucky enough to miss the first shot :P, others I have let pass, let a guy raid the barracks instead of chucking a grenade in through the door and helped a few guys in electro not get killed by zombies. All in all I would be in favor of instant tent destruction upon death and also having equipment degrade sounds amazing, it was one of my favorite mechanics in the fallout games.

[AryanBoogeyman 185]

Of course clans are going to object to instant tent destruction, having near infinite gear at their fingertips allows them to stay strong and not have to waste time getting gear for a killed squadmate. My friends and I don't care too much if one of us dies as we have extra guns and supplies at our base, all the freshly respawned guy has to do is make it back up north and boom he has an assault rifle, decent handgun, medical supplies and food. Takes the fun right out of the game if you ask me before when I was going solo I was actually scared of dieing and panicked at the thought of aggroing zed or finding a player. Now the only objective I have now is to find a light machine gun and an L85. Hell, we all agreed if we find a heli we were gonna just joy ride the hell out of it and shoot at people until we either run out of bullets and gas or get shot down. On the subject of duping sometimes its not the players fault but most of the time it is. We had a tent back in version 1.7.2.2 stocked with a DMR with 3 mags and some others things. When the 1.7.2.3 update came out the tent got locked as in anything put into it is deleted and anything taken from it is restored upon restart of the server no matter if saved or not, so free DMR and 3 mags three times a day, maybe more if random restarts occured. Luckily(in my opinion) the server failed to update properly to 1.7.2.4 and now we can't play on it. Another definite problem with people having so much gear is of course the hackers while some nuke and change people into animals some just spawn a shit ton of gear in crates. First time I hit the airfield I found a dead one, must've been bad because he died to zombies. Anyway AS50 with thermal, silenced PDW, every tool you can have, a coyote, camo clothing and a guille suit. This is only one example as I know many other people have found hacker crates and gotten things from silenced G36s to soldiers clothing.

Though if tents were destroyed instantly upon death I know my team and I would be a lot more careful and also I'd probably start to KoS, as of now I have only killed two people because they were dumb enough or unlucky enough to miss the first shot :P, others I have let pass, let a guy raid the barracks instead of chucking a grenade in through the door and helped a few guys in electro not get killed by zombies. All in all I would be in favor of instant tent destruction upon death and also having equipment degrade sounds amazing, it was one of my favorite mechanics in the fallout games.

One of our old camps has about five tents full to the gills with gear we stole from a clan that keeps resetting itself no matter how much is taken out. M-16A203s, MK Mod-0s, M-249s, M-134(?) Rocket Launchers, on and on... we finally just abandoned it as there is just zero challenge left being geared like that all the time. I imagine the excitement when new people stumble upon that treasure trove but also think it should all be deleted as that kind of self replicating war chest just flat out breaks this mod.

Good on you for resisting the temptation to KOS everyone and everything. I know I have found myself playing a lot more solo (most of my buddies are horribly bored with DayZ already) and making dashes to the beach to help new people out. (ie: cleaning zombie hordes off their backs, giving out steaks and meds, etc.)

Love the idea of weapon degredation and upkeep. Would add a new layer to the onion so to speak.

[umishak 3]

Killing zombies, surviving with comrades, killing hostile survivors, bandits and game poopers, burying their bodies, helping survivors, baiting survivors, scaring shit of survivors.

Once I and 4-7 buddies maintained for 2-3 hours security for all peaceful survivors in Elektro by overwatch from towers and helping them on ground. It was amazing experience and I think not expected from your point of view (first post). It wouldn't happen if we have not got bored from all "team work" securing our camps vehicles and stuff. We just picked sniper rifles and rest hatchets and went to city.

I think beauty of DayZ and not playing DayZ is in that nobody knows how to play DayZ IMO not even Rocket. And scenes and scenearios, roles and relations that emerge are fascinating and beautiful. Just please don't categorize everyone by momentary behavior.

[Huntra 35]

This is just a whine post. When you find some friends in the game you'll be the same as everyone else. You'll stockpile weapons and vehicles and medical supplies and ammo and you won't give a fuck. Me and my friends have camps on multiple servers. We use the cars to hit up military loot spots and petrol stations disappearing off to our concealed bases. On some servers we have 4-5 vehicles, multiple AS50s and stuff. We plan our operations on the map before we head off to maximise efficiency and shoot on sight anyone whose presence poses a threat to our operation. It's incredibly fun.

All the game needs is more comms to allow new players to team up and friendly soloers to avoid shooting each other.

Edited August 13, 2012 by Huntra

[bazbake 456]

@Huntra

"The only reason you're not an asshole is because you don't have any friends. If you did, you'd be an asshole, too."

I like where this is going...please...continue. I remember when all of the bandits were saying that bandit skins wouldn't slow down KoS because, deep down, we're all just bandits. That was equally funny.