We need a purpose.

[WildGunsTomcat 78]

I know that this is in Alpha, so we're working out the mechanics and the premise of the mod still.

Before I continue: I am an Arma and Arma 2 veteran. You name the mod, I've played it.

That being said: This is the best mod I have ever seen on Arma or Arma 2.

Now, Rocket, we need missions.

I understand that the survival aspect of the game is just that: Survive.

But a lot of us need purpose to give the game direction other than: Camp...randomly murder noobs for the lulz...rinse...repeat.

If they want that, they can go play Call of Duty.

I'm not saying grand missions like Domination...but the game needs a mission system that gives objectives to people that like to group up as a team and brave the zombie apocalypse as a team.

Because right now all the game is encouraging is being a lone wolf so you don't get murdered for your can of beans.

Missions like chopper down missions....or a radio beacon is going off in the woods...investigate....things like that. End of the world is there anyone else alive type stuff.

Just my two cents.

[tureis 0]

Some sort of faction system would work out better than being given missions by an AI.

[tsj108@gmail.com 0]

I like the idea of small missions :D

[zeru 5]

It takes a lot more dev time and resources to give players the chance to build/rescue/investigate/etc, than it is to simply hand them guns and let them kill each other eh.

But yeah ideally this sort of stuff will happen some day. Hopefully with funding it'll happen sooner rather than later.

[Samsquanch (DayZ) 8]

I took a peek at the files and found a outline of the missions... They are planned, but just give the team time to make them proper. In the mean time, practice surviving.

[naizarak 41]

i made a thread about this very problem recently: the game is just too repetitive. most advanced players are just hunting noobs because there's nothing else to do.

i think the inclusion of the radio and detective is interesting, so hopefully we'll see more such features in the future

[Pale_Rider 2]

I think there's 2 big things that would address this which, used concurrently, would add a real depth of strategy to the game it's currently missing:

Second-Tier Metagame Challenges

Character Motivations

Click each link to find out more.

[LanceUppercut 7]

i disagree with adding missions, what i love about this is that you can make your own, i regularly go on rescue missions to help out people i know and trust, then we gear up at the airfield, get working vehicles etc..

[Samsquanch (DayZ) 8]

Okay, well missions would not be directly given to you just like in the ArmA campaigns, where you kind of discover side quests. There would probably be a means to obtain them, and it would be uncommon or rare to find the mission starter. Your main mission is always to survive I believe. That is a hard enough thing as it is. haha

This mod is a sandbox, and the makers are treating it as such. They want to give you the option to pursue something other than your own ideas if you choose to do so. That is their job. :)

It's all about the rewards. People want to get captivated in their experience, and for some, the idea of "Do anything" works, but other just want someone to point them in the direction of the next important thing.

Just my ideas.

[Thesreyn 18]

Rocket replied in a previous thread about a separate issue entirely. However, the content of that post is relevant here. I'll paraphrase because I can't be bothered finding the actual post itself, but what he basically expressed was incredulity at the fact that gamers these days want everything spoon fed to them. Rules, motivation, purpose, items... The players want all of this stuff (especially rules and purpose) to be forced upon them.

There is plenty to do in DayZ at the moment without resorting to killing other players for jollies. Build up a group of players who can police banditry. Or get that group of players together to take over a town for your own purposes (nefarious or benevolent... Or in between). Acquire vehicles and have drag races around courses marked in flares, bonus points if it involves going through a zombie infested town. Debug monitor is still up, go with some friends, give yourselves a time limit and see who out of you can kill the most zombies. Have a prize for the winner. For solo play, challenge yourself to see how many you can take down in a given time limit. Then go search for more ammo.

Help other players who need it by offering services (carefully, of course). Go take the DayZ nut up mode challenge etc. etc.

There is SO much to do in the mod, but it seems like a lot of people are only focusing on acquisition of gear or killing players. Call it a commentary on gaming society if you will, but I have to blame this on current generation content and the way gaming has evolved. "The End Game" is the only thing that seems to matter anymore, and I think a lot of players have lost sight of the journey to get there. You don't see level 1 gnome raids on hogger, or 40v40 paladins v shamans (as examples) anymore. People are too focused on getting their 'epic loots'. Is it fun? Sure, but it takes so much away from the spontaneity and creativity that gamers had years ago. Minecraft doesn't give you direction, or purpose. It gives you NOTHING, sets you in a world and tells you one simple thing: Survive. How you do that is up to you, but once you've locked down survival, you need to create your own purpose. The same goes for DayZ.

Think outside the box. For the moment, these are the tools we have. They may be expanded in the future, and we may be given some developer created motivation or purpose, but it should not detract from player generated purpose and motivation. You have a big sandbox world out there, with plenty of tools at your disposal. Think creatively and have fun.

[super pretendo 2]

We need: roaming zombie hordes, not static spawning borefests. Zombies need to actually seek out and threaten players, players should always be in danger of zombies unless they are deep in the wilderness. And even then, but rarely.

[Mordeci 0]

Personally i like having the option of having built missions sitting there waiting to be done, not forcing me to do them but they are always there if i need something to do. But there is nothing more fun than just getting a few bits and pieces together and going out hunting with friends. sometimes it involves other players (usually hunting another group of my friends and trying to kill them before they get us, sitting on mumble or w/e and dropping clues and trying to work out where their group are at.)

I would have to agree with Thesreyn for what he has said. Some people just cant be bothered to think up their own missions or put any thought into what they are doing other than blasting zeds or other players. They expect everything to be laid out for them so that they can sit down and just go. Mainstream games these days nearly always have pre-described routes through levels and that is what people are used to and when they don't have that security of being led by the hand through the levels they get scared and cant think of what they can do.

This is just my opinion and view and sorry if i have repeated anything that other people have said ^^!

Feel free to tell me if you think what I'm saying is crap, its only my view on what I've seen and heard so far from some of the players on this.

[trauma.au 14]

We need reliability and stability, then a purpose can be pursued.

[Jeff (DayZ) 1]

I agree in a sense with the above post. Persistence will change things WAY around in this mod. Once people can get encampments set up on a server and not have it disappear in a week, then we're talking. The only big problems with this is that players can simply log out of one server in the spot they want and log back in another without having to bypass guards or patrols or anything

[blackbeard06 16]

jumping in late, have not gotten to read all the threads so forgive me if this has been brought up before, BUT. The devs have already been working on such missions. unpbo the files and see for yourself. We can expect missions working with doctors, cell phone integration (main use of comm?) and radiation will play a big part. in time we will see this mod evolve to a level of much more complexity.

[zeru 5]

There is plenty to do in DayZ at the moment without resorting to killing other players for jollies. Build up a group of players who can police banditry. Or get that group of players together to take over a town for your own purposes (nefarious or benevolent... Or in between). Acquire vehicles and have drag races around courses marked in flares' date=' bonus points if it involves going through a zombie infested town. Debug monitor is still up, go with some friends, give yourselves a time limit and see who out of you can kill the most zombies. Have a prize for the winner. For solo play, challenge yourself to see how many you can take down in a given time limit. Then go search for more ammo.

[/quote']

While it's great to see people come up with these mini-game fantasies, none of this related to surviving a zombie apocalypse. It's pretty much just circle jerking the sandbox concept of the game.

We aren't here asking for our hands to be held or asking to be told to complete explicit tasks, but we're asking for more zombie/survival relevant activities to do in the game. Stuff like sandbags, barbed wire, and the hinted at power generators are a small start at offering this, but it has a long way to go before you could truly say 'there is plenty to do outside of killing other players'.

Anyway the devs are doing a great and gradual job at beefing things up, and I look forward to what this game will be like with greater time and budget.

What I don't look forward to are people continuing to circle jerk the status quo as the greatest thing ever.

[Thesreyn 18]

And I'm getting rather sick of entitled shits who think they deserve everything right now, and complain when it isn't implemented immediately. We're in alpha. rocket is updating practically daily and is working on a lot of core things whilst also trying to implement new stuff.

There is plenty to do in the mod. Not all of it is related to zombie survival, and player killing itself, is not related to zombie survival. But there are a lot of things you can do that IS related. Take a look at the first few options that were given, they involve getting players together to carve their own niche. With persistence fixes going in regularly, you and other players have plenty of incentive to go out there and make your own slice of survival heaven. And if it doesn't work? Report the bugs. You're in alpha, and this is a mod. There is nothing here that you deserve, or that you are entitled to. Help the mod by testing, instead of complaining that you're bored of it already.

[vpope 28]

Your purpose = Survive

glad we cleared that up.

[oilman 72]

One of the best things about DayZ is that you can make a purpose for yourself.

For example, merely getting my hands on a helicopter has been my purpose for today, while yesterday my purpose was to find a set of NVG's.

[GigaHobo 0]

Completely agree with Oilman and Vpope.

Your purpose is to survive, your goal is whatever you need or want at the time!

But I am not averse to a mission like system with rewards.

A good while I go I played a beta of Fallout Online, it was based on FO2 and had pretty much the same idea, survive! But at 12pm everyday a small envoy would arrive at the citadel and drop off random goodies! Usually power armor, or high end goodies!

Now the fun thing about it was there was a message alerting everyone that it had arrived and the whole server would swarm to get these items of value. Battles would ensue teams were made! Bonds were broken!

I can see Day Z benefitting from a similar thing! Just my thought anyway.

[alienfreak 6]

Completely agree with Oilman and Vpope.

Your purpose is to survive' date=' your goal is whatever you need or want at the time!

But I am not averse to a mission like system with rewards.

A good while I go I played a beta of Fallout Online, it was based on FO2 and had pretty much the same idea, survive! But at 12pm everyday a small envoy would arrive at the citadel and drop off random goodies! Usually power armor, or high end goodies!

Now the fun thing about it was there was a message alerting everyone that it had arrived and the whole server would swarm to get these items of value. Battles would ensue teams were made! Bonds were broken!

I can see Day Z benefitting from a similar thing! Just my thought anyway.

[/quote']

I already proposed a system of secret labs placed randomly around the map with a self destruct mechanism 20 minutes after someone enters.

Filled with special (like in really hard) zombies and precious loot.

People will go explore to find them. Battles will start over the loot. Groups are needed both for the battles as well as the special zombies.

This was proposed by me at day 1 of this forum but bashed as unneeded but some forum knoweverythings.

[oilman 72]

I think that sort of system is quite nice. Perhaps the 'secret lab' idea is a bit much, but a well-guarded (By zombies - a non-undead military presence would be a bit odd) military cache that lies underground with unique loot found nowhere else is a great idea.

That being said: It's an idea for much further down the track, and as well as that, it's an idea that would be better kept a secret when implemented. ;)

[Drake Sigar 9]

I think we need a starter hub free from player killing.

Yes I know I just made dozens of Day Z members froth with rage and prepare their usual repertoire of Modern Warfare comparisions. Sorry to dissapoint them by not embodying the stereotypes they'll project onto me, but I'm NOT against player killing. There's just no other way I can see to encourage random strangers to team up. They need the opportunity as well as the reward, and right now there is no opportunity. The only way to form a group is by pre-planning it on a forum elsewhere, and using a private voicechat channel. Try it over a public chat and you'll end up dead or discover you're at opposite ends of the map. It's a hassle. If we had a central zone to hang out at, people would be able to start forming groups in-game.

[oilman 72]

I've found that random strangers team up all the time. I've had a group of 19 players simply meet in Cherno and go Zed hunting together, and I've never played a game where I didn't pass a friendly and decide to go with him.

[Thesreyn 18]

If you want to make a group with people, you're going to have to indulge in some trial and error. Fact is that if you're willing to put in the time to find out whether a player is hostile or not, you are then able to build a group of players who aren't (at least, not currently). Try talking to players outside of game (since DC isn't working right now) and meeting up. If they kill you, you have just learnt something about them and you have intel you can give to the people you find who don't kill you.

Life is cheap in this mod. You can find people who are friendly with a bit of effort, and what does dying do? Takes away some gear? Oh no. You've learnt something more valuable: who to trust. Then when you have a group of trustworthy friends, go and get your gear and have a grand old time.

If you get killed by a bandit, shrug it off. It's not a big deal. Seriously, it's just loot.