Is DayZ a "zombie survival" game or a deatchmatch game in a zombie survival setting? (Serious question)

[GoodGrief 21]

Wow Axo you seem sure of humanity and the goodwill of mankind. There are places in the world you can go right now where you would be robbed and killed within an hour if you just stood around smiling. During disasters, when the rule of society and law is gone, all kinds of mayhem takes place. Seems like you are in some fictional reality, possibly The Walking Dead.

[-AoXo- 24]

Wow Axo you seem sure of humanity and the goodwill of mankind. There are places in the world you can go right now where you would be robbed and killed within an hour if you just stood around smiling. During disasters, when the rule of society and law is gone, all kinds of mayhem takes place. Seems like you are in some fictional reality, possibly The Walking Dead.

Perhaps.

There are also places you could go right now and be given free stuff for doing nothing more than being an obnoxious, loud-mouthed, parasite and blight to humanity (see: every celebrity ever). What exactly is your point? It seems like you are in some fictional reality where you get to pick and choose what rules exist in a given scenario. In your reality everything is modelled on war-torn Africa or some other god forsaken place, run by militia and terrorists - and while many other areas of the world may decend into that sort of chaos, the level seen in DayZ simply wouldn't exist in a civilised society. The reason for this is that history has shown us that over thousands of years regardless of the assholes of the universe, good people exist and are often punished and often become collateral to these assholes. And believe me, most civilisations of the past were FAR less civilised than we are today and yet more civilised than we see in DayZ, so I don't see why you believe we would decend into less civilised beings. But this is all conjecture and neither here nor there.

The pertinent facts are these: there are a shit tonne of people (many on these forums) who would like to actually play as survivors, but because of bandits, and because of pre-emptive attacks made by other survivors, end up dead; and it cascades into what we have now where everyone shoots everyone because no one trusts no one. In a real situation these sorts of things wouldn't happen quite so quickly. You'd be able to hide a lot more easily from people, you could tell "by the look" of others what their intentions were. That's simply not the case in DayZ. Another often overlooked feature of DayZ vs real life is *skills*. A doctor is likely not going to be killed because his skills would be invaluable. In DayZ where everybody is a doctor, chef, survivalist, "cop, soldier, office clerk, waitress, lumber jack, race car driver, rocket scientist and unicorn" there's simply no need, or repercussion, to not keeping someone alive.

When I speak of "realistic" aspects I simply mean those that justify in-game mechanics; and DayZ seems to have an incredibly unrealistic platform and I don;t particularly see it being fixed unless restrictions or repurcussions are imposed on people who choose to simply PvP rather than work together. And even then rocket has actually supported meta-gaming, meaning groups of bandits can work together in ways that gives them even more power to prevent survivors from working together to achieve ... well there's not much to achieve is there?

Edit: Another facet of my discussion is this: many players believe that there is actually goals to achieve in DayZ and that working together is an important part of these goals. Can someone enlighten me? Working in a group hasn't worked for me, and people seem to only be able to say "it changes the game" without saying how. Besides working together to find missing parts for vehicles I don't know what team work can accomplish, nor what purpose getting a vehicle has. By the time you get one up and running you're probbaly already well stocked, and with an infinite suply of food and ammo it's not like you're heading for "somewhere better". That's beside the point though: what exactly can players achieve and achieve "together"?

/incoherent rant

Edited October 5, 2012 by -AoXo-

[GoodGrief 21]

I only managed the first paragraph; gave up when you mentioned failed states and compared it to how "civilised society" would cope

You are a pretentious cunt and know absolutely nothing. Sure can type a lot tho. This is my opinion, hope thats ok

[-AoXo- 24]

I only managed the first paragraph; gave up when you mentioned failed states and compared it to how "civilised society" would cope

You are a pretentious cunt and know absolutely nothing. Sure can type a lot tho. This is my opinion, hope thats ok

How would you know if you didn't read, let alone understand my point? I can tell you right now that the mentality that is a part of national identity would be incredibly important to how a society reacts to various events. I can tell you, as an Australian, that we would help other people - helping our neighbours and those in need is part of what makes up the Australian identity. Not everyone would help of course (I'm not that naive), but to suggest it would decend into murderous chaos is ridiculous. As I said (if you had read that far) societies in the past have been far more barbaric than us and yet remained far more civil than you are implying.

Why you bothered replying at all is beyond me.

[sostronk 334]

Edit: Another facet of my discussion is this: many players believe that there is actually goals to achieve in DayZ and that working together is an important part of these goals. Can someone enlighten me? Working in a group hasn't worked for me, and people seem to only be able to say "it changes the game" without saying how. Besides working together to find missing parts for vehicles I don't know what team work can accomplish, nor what purpose getting a vehicle has. By the time you get one up and running you're probbaly already well stocked, and with an infinite suply of food and ammo it's not like you're heading for "somewhere better". That's beside the point though: what exactly can players achieve and achieve "together"?

Its hard to find players who are good at this game. When you do things are alot easier. Id never bother trying to repair most vehicles in this game as a lonewolf. Even two wheels and some scrap metal is an outright pain in the ass to gather to fix a bike as far as Im concerned. With a group I run with occasionally, even repairing a chopper doesn't take very long. There are alot of tasks you can set yourself to do. But the fact is most people I run into are terrible at this game, they aren't organized and most of all my likelihood of dieing is increased dramatically when I am working with them.

TBH Ive run into some fairly decent skilled survivors who can outplay me enough to survive. I think the main issue with the KOS mentality is that people need to skill up, whether they are a survivor, bandit or hero, because most people are really easy to kill. On the other hand there are a few regulars I run into in some of my main servers who make it so frustratingly difficult to kill them that I literally give up and go loot myself.

[-AoXo- 24]

Its hard to find players who are good at this game. When you do things are alot easier. Id never bother trying to repair most vehicles in this game as a lonewolf. Even two wheels and some scrap metal is an outright pain in the ass to gather to fix a bike as far as Im concerned. With a group I run with occasionally, even repairing a chopper doesn't take very long. There are alot of tasks you can set yourself to do. But the fact is most people I run into are terrible at this game, they aren't organized and most of all my likelihood of dieing is increased dramatically when I am working with them.

TBH Ive run into some fairly decent skilled survivors who can outplay me enough to survive. I think the main issue with the KOS mentality is that people need to skill up, whether they are a survivor, bandit or hero, because most people are really easy to kill. On the other hand there are a few regulars I run into in some of my main servers who make it so frustratingly difficult to kill them that I literally give up and go loot myself.

I've never factored skill into DayZ. It's never been about the skill of other players, but rather what they are doing.

[Snablas 7]

This, exactly. People are bored, the start of the game is too easy, especially if you start living in the woods.

[Snablas 7]

People are making a very big assumption here right across the forums. Increasing game difficulty is not going to decrease banditry/deathmatch etc. As a bandit, if anything, making the game more difficult is only going to make me all the more keen to kill players. Increasing game difficulty is going to increase deathmatch, because now its not just an option, but the only option. Kill to survive or die.

Well, I can gear up without killing a single player within perhapse thirty minutes. Perhapse your way isn't the only way? I think a lot of players kill others because of that this almost always make you advance in the game. If others weren't so geared up, then I don't think people were to be so inclined to kill them. Besides, how would you decrease unnecessary banditry?

[Jex =TE= (DayZ) 218]

I want L4D type zombie's. Ones that surround you and kill you. Ones that are deadly that when you're near them that you are shitting ur pants because if you aggro them you know that it could be the start of your demise. It's a zombie apocalypse NOT a survival game. The concentration should all be on the Zeds making you creep around towns and not running through them without a care in the world. I don't want stupid super eagle-eyed zombies that can spot you crawling from 300m away. I want to have to use cover, dart from building to building to keep myself hidden from them.

To achieve this, their eyesight needs to be fixed, their numbers increased or their damaged increased or if you get hit you get infected and die in an hour.. I still say head-shots should kill them and you should be able to take out their legs with several shots and not the pathetic situation we have now where you don't even acknowledge the zombies coming after you other than to get annoyed with them.

This is a Zombie Apocalypse Survival game, not a fucking deathmatch game, not a fucking survival "bear grylls" game, not a horde as much shit as you can game and not a how much of a dickhead can i be game.

[GoodGrief 21]

How would you know if you didn't read, let alone understand my point? I can tell you right now that the mentality that is a part of national identity would be incredibly important to how a society reacts to various events. I can tell you, as an Australian, that we would help other people - helping our neighbours and those in need is part of what makes up the Australian identity. Not everyone would help of course (I'm not that naive), but to suggest it would decend into murderous chaos is ridiculous. As I said (if you had read that far) societies in the past have been far more barbaric than us and yet remained far more civil than you are implying.

Why you bothered replying at all is beyond me.

Throw another aussie on the barbie will ya love. That's what you are going to be saying when the shelves have been empty for a week, teaspoons of cement aside

Edited October 5, 2012 by GoodGrief

[Faceman Peck 93]

My issue with DayZ from very early on is that you quickly - extremely quickly - realise that survival in DayZ is not difficult. In fact, surviving isn't really an issue. "What's the goal of DayZ" - to survive. Well, it's either to survive or "to build a helicopter (and get NVG then go on the forums telling everyone else you have them)" - so I'm not really sure what the focus of the game is. All I know is that survival isn't the main goal - not unless you consider Quake a survival game too (but I'll get to this in a bit).

See, DayZ for me has never been about survival. I've been able to make character and survive easily. Heading off into the safety of the woods isn't my problem. Me "playing the game wrong" isn't the problem. The reason the woods isn't the problem is because it has to be assumed that *somewhere* is safe. And since we can't "make" safe areas (barricading homes, clearing towns, etc) the wilderness has become this default safe zone, mostly free of zombies - who, ironically, were merely an annoying side effect of the setting (and any setting or back drop has its drawbacks). Saturating the game world with enemies is artifical difficulty. Giving the player "overwhelming" hurdles doesn't make the game more difficult - it makes it cheap.

And how could I possibly be playing the game wrong? It's an open world zombisurciivnhabbadabbadoo game so I am allowed to do what I want (I hope this comment doesn't bite me in the ass) - therefore no matter what I do it can't be considered wrong. However - to reiterate the point of this thread - I can survive easily; which means either the game is easy, or I'm playing on easy mode. Which brings up the question: what makes this game difficult?

It's certainly not the lack of supplies. From Day 1 I've been disappointed with the way items spawn. That's a huge issue that needs overhauling. It;s too much for me to comment on my own. But it's one of the issues - everything is plentiful - which partly makes it so annoying that we have people killing without the intention of stealing items. At least in that case I could be happy to say "I would do the same if I was starving". But I am never starving, and neither is the guy playing as a "bandit" (murderer - a bandit would actually steal something).

Now, I could chalk it up to Arma, or to "Alpha" or something like that - but it's been reiterated time and time again that "the point" of DayZ, that the "real threat" of DayZ is other players. So, zombies aren't a threat, and surviving isn't a threat. It's just other players, right? Is that what I'm to understand? And, if this is a correct assumption then doesn't that mean that DayZ is essentially just a drawn out (sometimes very drawn out) deathmatch? I don't want to be TOO cynical is saying this next bit - but if I describe a game in which you spawn, look for weapons, and kill other players you would probbaly think I was talking about some arena style shooter. In older shooters the map itself may have had lava pits or some other environmental danger so that it wasn't just "other players" you had to look out for. It seems as if the laval pit has been replaced with zombies, and rocket jumping replaced with "survival elements".

But again, I don't want to be too cynical with that point, because eventually any game is going to come down to "spawn, look for weapons (items), and kill other players" - but ... wait. Why don't we change that up? From my stand point (and I'm sure many disagree) weapons aren't the issue, but for me having a saturation of weapons causing the game to be reduced to the elements of an arena style death match. Why don't we make the environment the focus, and weapons incidental? A true survival game would reduce the goals of survival to that of... well, the Sims (which may or may not be your cup of tea depending on your tastes).

I understand it's in a post-soviet era state, but I find the whole pretense of "zombie survival" to be absolutly moot. These don't seem like "alpha" issues, or particularly to be "Arma" issues. I don't feel that if I "have patience and faith in Rocket or the Arma 2.5 or 3 engine (whatever he's using)" that these underlying issues will be fixed. It seems quite clear that weapon spawn rates could be lowered drastically, that food and other essential items could be rarer. I'm not sure if it's just me and my personal taste or not. Maybe this is "clearly what people want" - but I just don't see the "survival" aspect interplaying with the "zombie" aspect. I don't see my survival being tied to anything but my gun and how I use it against other players.

But whatever. I haven't even played the game for several months now, so there's no point in telling me to stop playing. I'm merely trying to understand what the community likes about this game, what is inherent to DayZ and what is incidental.

Your wall of text critted me for 12k now I'm bleeding out of my eyeballs because of it.

Who cares ?

[Maniacmike (DayZ) 24]

If u had brains u would reliese its whatever u want it to be.

So it's a dumb question.

Look at what happened when that place in the US got flooded, people robbed and shot each other for shit.

So ya PVP is spot on and welcome to human nature.

[Sneakers O'Toole 57]

Perhaps.

There are also places you could go right now and be given free stuff for doing nothing more than being an obnoxious, loud-mouthed, parasite and blight to humanity (see: every celebrity ever). What exactly is your point? It seems like you are in some fictional reality where you get to pick and choose what rules exist in a given scenario. In your reality everything is modelled on war-torn Africa or some other god forsaken place, run by militia and terrorists - and while many other areas of the world may decend into that sort of chaos, the level seen in DayZ simply wouldn't exist in a civilised society. The reason for this is that history has shown us that over thousands of years regardless of the assholes of the universe, good people exist and are often punished and often become collateral to these assholes. And believe me, most civilisations of the past were FAR less civilised than we are today and yet more civilised than we see in DayZ, so I don't see why you believe we would decend into less civilised beings. But this is all conjecture and neither here nor there.

The pertinent facts are these: there are a shit tonne of people (many on these forums) who would like to actually play as survivors, but because of bandits, and because of pre-emptive attacks made by other survivors, end up dead; and it cascades into what we have now where everyone shoots everyone because no one trusts no one. In a real situation these sorts of things wouldn't happen quite so quickly. You'd be able to hide a lot more easily from people, you could tell "by the look" of others what their intentions were. That's simply not the case in DayZ. Another often overlooked feature of DayZ vs real life is *skills*. A doctor is likely not going to be killed because his skills would be invaluable. In DayZ where everybody is a doctor, chef, survivalist, "cop, soldier, office clerk, waitress, lumber jack, race car driver, rocket scientist and unicorn" there's simply no need, or repercussion, to not keeping someone alive.

When I speak of "realistic" aspects I simply mean those that justify in-game mechanics; and DayZ seems to have an incredibly unrealistic platform and I don;t particularly see it being fixed unless restrictions or repurcussions are imposed on people who choose to simply PvP rather than work together. And even then rocket has actually supported meta-gaming, meaning groups of bandits can work together in ways that gives them even more power to prevent survivors from working together to achieve ... well there's not much to achieve is there?

Edit: Another facet of my discussion is this: many players believe that there is actually goals to achieve in DayZ and that working together is an important part of these goals. Can someone enlighten me? Working in a group hasn't worked for me, and people seem to only be able to say "it changes the game" without saying how. Besides working together to find missing parts for vehicles I don't know what team work can accomplish, nor what purpose getting a vehicle has. By the time you get one up and running you're probbaly already well stocked, and with an infinite suply of food and ammo it's not like you're heading for "somewhere better". That's beside the point though: what exactly can players achieve and achieve "together"?

/incoherent rant

“Society is only three square meals from anarchy/revolution”

There is no more fun than hunting or being hunted by other players because it never the same experience twice. A human opponent has a brain with 100 billion neuronal connections giving at least the appearance of irreducible complexity. An AI has a few hundred lines of code, so after a short time will become predictable, unlike a human it will not ever surprise you, you will not have any fear of it's intentions, because you know what it will do.

Do you think it is a coincidence that almost every game in existence is versus other people?

[-AoXo- 24]

If u had brains u would reliese its whatever u want it to be.

So it's a dumb question.

Look at what happened when that place in the US got flooded, people robbed and shot each other for shit.

So ya PVP is spot on and welcome to human nature.

1) Can you elaborate on what "whatever you want it to be" actually means? DayZ has a lack of features which means it's not what I want it to be (in fact my post pretty much makes it clear DayZ isn't what I want it to be and is severely lacking in tha department).

2) You might want to actually research "that place in the US that got flooded" and figure out what really happened - most of it was sensationalised due to panic and misinformation.

3) Your answer was incredibly stupid.

[Maniacmike (DayZ) 24]

1.fuck off and play another game...like PAC man

2.research? That's what the news is for dumb ass

3. I don't give a fuck cuz ur a freak.

4.stop playing games if u want them to be real u thick cunt

1) Can you elaborate on what "whatever you want it to be" actually means? DayZ has a lack of features which means it's not what I want it to be (in fact my post pretty much makes it clear DayZ isn't what I want it to be and is severely lacking in tha department).

2) You might want to actually research "that place in the US that got flooded" and figure out what really happened - most of it was sensationalised due to panic and misinformation.

3) Your answer was incredibly stupid.

[Heiduk 265]

I suspect the reason society doesn't descend into an everyman for himself and damn the neighbors slaughter-fest every time there is a slight disruption has little to do with how "civilized" any particular group of people is and a lot to do with the fact that we actually need each other. I don't care how much of a badass you are you still need to sleep and having someone to watch your back is a good way to stay alive. Not to mention knowing people is helpful if you ever want to have sex again. In DayZ we don't need anyone and as sostronk said other players may even be a liability, add to this that there is little incentive to keep your character alive.

Currently in DayZ a decent solo player can spend 90% of their time running combat ops with the remaining 10% dedicated to handling the logistics to support those ops. If you don't care about making any preparations for your death you can probably push that close to 100%. That is a deathmatch game. Perhaps a more realistic survival game where you spend 90% of your time handling logistics wouldn't be as fun but if this game is supposed to be about survival players should have to do more than just shoot each other.

[Maniacmike (DayZ) 24]

Sorry I can't believe u guys think this "mod" which was prob free to make and didn't have much money spent on it would be the greatest survival game ever.

I like how everyone thinks how people would react in real life...keep thinking is all I say.

Ill put my house on it that if this zombie thing did happen we would kill ourselfs before the zombies.

It's human nature to want what we can't have.

I suspect the reason society doesn't descend into an everyman for himself and damn the neighbors slaughter-fest every time there is a slight disruption has little to do with how "civilized" any particular group of people is and a lot to do with the fact that we actually need each other. I don't care how much of a badass you are you still need to sleep and having someone to watch your back is a good way to stay alive. Not to mention knowing people is helpful if you ever want to have sex again. In DayZ we don't need anyone and as sostronk said other players may even be a liability, add to this that there is little incentive to keep your character alive.

Currently in DayZ a decent solo player can spend 90% of their time running combat ops with the remaining 10% dedicated to handling the logistics to support those ops. If you don't care about making any preparations for your death you can probably push that close to 100%. That is a deathmatch game. Perhaps a more realistic survival game where you spend 90% of your time handling logistics wouldn't be as fun but if this game is supposed to be about survival players should have to do more than just shoot each other.

[-AoXo- 24]

Sorry I can't believe u guys think this "mod" which was prob free to make and didn't have much money spent on it would be the greatest survival game ever.

Why does it seem so difficult for you (and others) to consider that we're just discussing the very core aspects that make up DayZ? It's not strictly about the technical aspects of the mod, or Arma, but about the core ideas presented in this mod. Arguing "what would really happen" is a moot point, and we've done enough of that in this thread. "what would really happen" was just a way for me to try and justify the game mechanics as they are/could be, and all discussion on that front is pure conjecture (though it seems quite a few people seem to be selfish and have so little faith in their fellow man that it's no wonder such terrible things happen in this world). The point I was trying to get across in all of that discussion was that people do actually want to work together in peaceful means, but have been forced to, due to the actions of others, to reject such gameplay. It nagates the comments that DayZ is "what you want it to be" because clearly the game is being run by a specific mentality, and due to core game mechanics there's no way to really get around that without sacrificing a lot of gameplay and probably several characters for 1 good gameplay experience.

Your statement would have little bearing if the same discussion could be had for the stand alone product, if you're suggesting a mod can't have substantial quality. The fact is these exact same issues are going to repeat themselves in the stand alone, but it's really up to people to change the tone of the game: unfortunately I and others don't see that happening which causes other elements of the game to become background motifs while combat and pvp take the foreground, which not everyone wants. the game certainly provides the means for the former playstyle, but it's over ruled by the overall mentality of the player base.

It's certainly something worth dicusssing, but if you don't see the point or you're not interested then fuck off. Why are you in the thread or on the forums?

[bfisher 561]

Sorry I can't believe u guys think this "mod" which was prob free to make and didn't have much money spent on it would be the greatest survival game ever.

I like how everyone thinks how people would react in real life...keep thinking is all I say.

It's still a pretty interesting concept.

But unfortunately there really isn't much to do besides PvP. I'm not going to build a camp in the woods and just spend days staring at my character sitting around eating and drinking. And there really is no incentive to work with strangers instead of just killing them for their stuff.