Social Observation: Playing DayZ to not play DayZ

[jovial 17]

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

I think you had it here.

Personally, I feel that the clan angle is what is central to a sandbox game. Having an endgame where a clan can accomplish something (construction, basebuilding, hoarding, or more imaginative objectives like creating a white hat police force to control a city) is where it's at.

I'm not saying that anything should be completely safe, but I think you're exaggerating the permanence of clan camps, given the state of hacking, not to mention the state of good old snooping players with grenades. Not to mention bringing up duping (or hacking in general), which hopefully will not be a issue in a future live release, or at least not as much of an issue.

If anything, clan bases need to have a bit more permanence than they do now, and Rocket has also confirmed this will be so.

I think some people make the mistake of looking at this as a zombie survival sim first and foremost, when in fact it's a sandbox game first and foremost. Avoiding some of the consequences of a harsh ruleset in a sandbox world by organizing and banding together is not a design flaw, completely the opposite.

[ACow 102]

I am making the unspoken assumption that all issues of hacking/duping/tent/vehicle bugs will be fixed and removed eventually, and thus that the current "experience" of the game isn't really a good place to look for how things are working out.

Again, I'm not against clans. Clans get a natural bonus simply by being a clan. That is, social theory aside, why people naturally team up in the first place.

But the players in them shouldn't be able to avoid the negative and natural mechanics that all other players in the game face. Mechanics which are the things that make DayZ stand out, without which it is just another shooter. And there should probably be some realities of the social aspects that they now have to consider (i.e who to send in to raid with the possibility of dying, finite resources amongst more mouths to feed/bigger groups have a bigger footprint, and some consequences if a person sent on a raid does die).

I know, some/most? clans like it to not be that way, for the same reason that many gamers say they like things which are "hardcore" and then try their best meta-style to get around them, but otherwise it becomes not about freedom/real consequences/choice, but about pushing players towards the necessity of clans at the cost of no more unique Dayz mechanics, instead of letting them choose between a rock and a hard place...edit: the grenade vs tent thing is a mechanic I really like, and I hope the philosophy of such things continues in that vein (i.e you can have boons, but they can also be taken away/stolen from you).

Edited August 17, 2012 by ACow

[KillCam96 26]

I like the permadeath and loss of all kit when this occurs, but I'm going to defend my well earned night vision goggles and m249 to my last breath, and take the enemy Down with me.

Why, only just today, me and two buddies set up a rendezvous at a pond to refill our canteens, suddenly we came under heavy sniper and machine gun fire, my group returned fire and split up, as I was ghillied up, I was given the task of the flank, we eventually hunted the bandits down and lined them up against a wall, blew away their kneecaps and left them for dead. Throughout that scenario, my heart was thumping and I was fucking nervou. THAT'S the dayz feeling and the satisfaction I got from their curses down the mic can never be beaten. I simply don't understand why people wouldn't want that. We weren't actively looking for a fight, and neither were the other guys we found out after a Skype call afterwards to congratulate each other, it was thoroughly enjoyable and my second best experience in dayz so far, playing the game? PLAY THE GAME THEN...

In other words... What he said :3