DayZ - zombie apocalypse online FFA permadeath survival Arma II mod

I just played DayZ for about an hour. I ran across another player and didn't really know what to do. I won a little firefight against a bandit. Ran out of ammo after that. I went to a dock where I decided I wanted to start over. So, I did this. I tried to pawn off the zombies on another player. It didn't work. :(
 
Someone mentioned leading a crowd of zombies into a crowd of humans. Is that even possible (for them to change their minds and attack other humans), or are the zombies just locked onto the chase forever until they're dead or a smoke bomb/fresh corpse appears nearby?
 
Blizzard said:
But this is neither very compatible with people who have limited playing time, nor very appropriate since the game is such a crapshoot. Is your life truly valuable or meaningful if the game just HAPPENS to spawn 20 zombies near you rather than 2? Is it rewarding for you to walk 2 hours to an airfield and die in one shot from a sniper (assuming snipers are one shot, since I haven't actually been hit by one).
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It would be for me. Frustrating? Sure. But there's nowhere else you could get an experience like that. I think that's valuable instead of making it more pleasant so people can play longer. It's not as simple as "well then why don't you just turn off your PC when you die, then you have permadeath lol" because everyone else needs to act as if their life is the most valuable thing...ever. That's what I want.
 
Sunflower said:
It would be for me. Frustrating? Sure. But there's nowhere else you could get an experience like that. I think that's valuable instead of making it more pleasant so people can play longer. It's not as simple as "well then why don't you just turn off your PC when you die, then you have permadeath lol" because everyone else needs to act as if their life is the most valuable thing...ever. That's what I want.
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If your life was actually that "valuable" and you were getting 24 hour bans from all servers every time you died, I would argue that the popularity the mod enjoys would decline, and it would have an EXTREMELY niche appeal.

The purpose of most games is to be fun to play, and having 90% risk and 10% reward might not be very fun unless you're a masochist. If your life is so valuable, wouldn't you only play in the daytime? Too much risk of getting near a zombie otherwise. And ideally you would find a spot that has respawning food and a water source, and simply camp that spot forever. Leaving the spot would be dangerous, and if your life is really so important then that's a losing proposition.

They could introduce a game mechanic where every player has a grenade glued to their forehead. Every minute, it has a 1/60 chance of going off. Most player's lives would end in an hour. It would be very surprising, since you'd never know when it would happen. Frustrating? Sure. But there's no where else you can get an experience like that. Gather up that loot, then bam, headgrenade takes it away! The random number generator wins THIS day, but maybe after your 24 hour server ban, you can have another shot. =P
 
Blizzard said:
They could introduce a game mechanic where every player has a grenade glued to their forehead. Every minute, it has a 1/60 chance of going off. Most player's lives would end in an hour. It would be very surprising, since you'd never know when it would happen. Frustrating? Sure. But there's no where else you can get an experience like that. Gather up that loot, then bam, headgrenade takes it away! The random number generator wins THIS day, but maybe after your 24 hour server ban, you can have another shot. =P
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But that's silly. While positioning and spawning is random, sure, there are a lot of things you can do, actual decisions you can make that raise your life expectancy by a LOT.

I'm sure there's a happy medium or mechanic that can be tweaked that would make us both happy, though.
 
I was thinking that it would be nice to have some sort of party spawn system where, if you joined a server and were in some sort of party with a friend, you could both spawn at the same place. I had a lot of fun playing with friends today, but the first hour was just us running up and down the coast trying to find each other which got tedious.
 
Blizzard said:
Someone mentioned leading a crowd of zombies into a crowd of humans. Is that even possible (for them to change their minds and attack other humans), or are the zombies just locked onto the chase forever until they're dead or a smoke bomb/fresh corpse appears nearby?
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Good question, I think they do go for anything moving, but then 9/10 I'm always shooting so they could just turn on who is attacking them. I will have to test!

They certainly don't give up easily. I saw a survivor running from about 8 zombies, he climbed on top of a scafold to get out of reach and I went in all guns blazing. After killing them, more came and we legged it from Tulga to Skalisty Island. They do actually swim, so after losing the other survivor I was still being chased all the way to Elektro where more and more joined the hunt for me. I eventually ran into the local church where they slowed to a crawl, it was then where i was able to wait for the opportune moment to run out of the door whilst they squeezed into the place. I lost most of them, but some still chased me. :/
 
spindoctor said:
I was thinking that it would be nice to have some sort of party spawn system where, if you joined a server and were in some sort of party with a friend, you could both spawn at the same place. I had a lot of fun playing with friends today, but the first hour was just us running up and down the coast trying to find each other which got tedious.
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I definitely agree with this, again with the limited playtime thing. If anyone has played FUEL, it has some similarities with this game...it's a huuuuge open world map, no loading, everyone is speeding around on 4-wheelers and bikes. The ingame voicechat was horrible (GFWL), even getting on the same world with someone else could be iffy, and I think the only way to find someone was for everyone to spawn into a warp zone that all players had unlocked, and then spend an hour or two (or 3+?) driving to where you actually wanted to go.

And if you ever got split up, you had the same sort of fun blundering around the landscape in snow and rain and stuff trying to catch site of each other again. That part I didn't mind. But the main thing is, a way to actually start with a friend without a built-in hour startup time would be awesome.
 
Hopefully most of this stuff will be controlled by the server. That way people can play on the server that allows them to play however they like. 1:1 time and like 2 or 3 days in a real day. Hardcore mode or respawning in the general area with your friends.

I would suggest posting on the official boards with your suggestions instead of here. Its alpha and Rocket reads the boards for feedback. Stuff will change.
 
docbon said:
I think it's more bullshit that game-time to real-time is practically 1:1 8(
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FUEL and Minecraft also have accelerated day/night cycles, and if I recall correctly Minecraft had server mods that made the nights shorter.

However, I can only imagine that that sort of thing might be possible with the ARMA II engine since I've heard there are day-only servers.
 
You can do anything you like with the time-of-day. Halting it / speeding up / slowing down requires a bit of scripting but it's possible. Else the lighting and when it gets dark is based on hemisphere of the map and the date set in the mission editor.

Seems to me like he chose a winter month date, especially since the nights are über dark. You can get some sweet atmospheric 'bright' nights with a big ass glowing moon during some date settings.
 
I feel that gearing the game towards bite-size play sessions and gamers who have limited (and hence arguably more valuable) free time would be detrimental to the experience. If you're a responsible grown-up or student who can't spend four+ hours having a virtual adventure free of interruptions and responsibilities, I'd like you to consider chalking this one up as a loss, enjoy other people's stories and video highlights and not try to impose your own requirements on what direction DayZ should head down.

Or, put another way, I think what makes this game so interesting (both from a player- and 'viewer'-perspective) are those things that, at its core, *make* this a game that's not for everyone. I worry that 'improving' the game so that it's more accessible and immediate might be the very thing which de-emphasises its curious sparkle.

EDIT: Case in point - I think a system whereby you can spawn with friends already in a group would be precisely the sort of thing that would dilute/remove the introductions of the story which the game seems to be wanting you to experience.
 
Am I missing a patch or something? I can't join quite a few servers, it says I need 1.6.92 (iirc) and I have 1.6.90.

I'm still having no luck going solo, I managed to find a sweet revolver and ammo in a shed and headed towards the nearest town as that's where everyone in the chat was. Unfortunately I got spotted and ended up getting chased by around 20 zombies and after about 10 mins and a lot of blood loss I sought shelter on a roof. Little did I know zombies could climb ladders /o\ at least I wasn't alone at the end, there was a dude chilling on said roof who didn't know what hit him!

I'm going to try to get into a game with some gaffers later on, all the videos I've seen make it look a lot more fun with a group.
 
Toodles said:
I feel that gearing the game towards bite-size play sessions and gamers who have limited (and hence arguably more valuable) free time would be detrimental to the experience. If you're a responsible grown-up or student who can't spend four+ hours having a virtual adventure free of interruptions and responsibilities, I'd like you to consider chalking this one up as a loss, enjoy other people's stories and video highlights and not try to impose your own requirements on what direction DayZ should head down.

Or, put another way, I think what makes this game so interesting (both from a player- and 'viewer'-perspective) are those things that, at its core, *make* this a game that's not for everyone. I worry that 'improving' the game so that it's more accessible and immediate might be the very thing which de-emphasises its curious sparkle.
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More eloquent that my "make it tougher" caveman aspect. Arma II already wasn't for everyone, but it makes the excellent videos or stories that come out of it that much more fascinating and wonderful.
 
The game seems interesting from the videos but the weapon / item spawning system seems really flawed. Would be much more interesting if weapons and ammo did not just randomly spawn in places they would not be like supermarkets, barns and so on.

Maybe they could have server events like finding a crashed helicopter, military cache or soldiers who have been turned still holding their weapons.
It might seem like a small complaint but these things really take away from the immersion.
 
web01 said:
The game seems interesting from the videos but the weapon / item spawning system seems really flawed. Would be much more interesting if weapons and ammo did not just randomly spawn in places they would not be like supermarkets, barns and so on.

Maybe they could have server events like finding a crashed helicopter, military cache or soldiers who have been turned still holding their weapons.
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Server events could be incredible but tough to implement - having everyone on the server converge on a location. Fucking MADNESS. It'd be great.
 
Killed my first bandit today :)

I was trying to get to a farmhouse to find some food and water. I heard a shot from a rifle. There was a bandit trying to snipe me. Without any warnings.

I took my Lee Enfield and shot him on my 3rd try. Too bad i could not get his stuff. About 12 Zombies heard the shots and ran straight at me.

I was running in panic for about 20 minutes. I found a little construction site. Climbed on top of it and shot one by one. Awesome.
 
Toodles said:
I feel that gearing the game towards bite-size play sessions and gamers who have limited (and hence arguably more valuable) free time would be detrimental to the experience. If you're a responsible grown-up or student who can't spend four+ hours having a virtual adventure free of interruptions and responsibilities, I'd like you to consider chalking this one up as a loss, enjoy other people's stories and video highlights and not try to impose your own requirements on what direction DayZ should head down.

Or, put another way, I think what makes this game so interesting (both from a player- and 'viewer'-perspective) are those things that, at its core, *make* this a game that's not for everyone. I worry that 'improving' the game so that it's more accessible and immediate might be the very thing which de-emphasises its curious sparkle.
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Even a 4-hour adventure might be fine with me. It's the "spend 1-2 hours attempting to find your friend and hoping you don't get particularly unlucky before the adventure starts" that makes it feel more of a grind than an adventure. Of course, some might consider the experiences of Beast and me (blunder in the night attempting to find a highway sign) to be adventures in themselves, and I suppose that's another viewpoint. =P

As as interested person who purchased the game and is playing the mod, I think it's fair for me to share my opinion for what direction the game should go, the same as other players. *shrug* An ideal situation would seem to be that some servers would have hardcore options (first person only, you get banned for 2 weeks if you die, etc.), some might have day only, some might have 4x day/night cycles, and so forth. In Minecraft there are survival servers, battle servers, there's the singleplayer easy mode, and there's the singleplayer hard mode where not only do you lose your player and gathered materials, but you lose everything you've BUILT. Having dedicated servers with configurable options is a strength of PC games, and I don't see a problem with leveraging that to allow players such as yourself to enjoy games on specific servers without all players being forced to have the same rule set.

Regarding server events, they would already seem to be possible to an extent judging by the "everybody is a bird" or "everybody flies into the air and/or dies" shenanigans by admins thus far. :P

And as for weapons spawning, it'd be like Hunger Games! Mad rush for equipment!
 
They could easily set up a 'military sweep', imagine a Russian group of infantry followed by a BMP / BRDM rolled through the terrain, killing zombies. Someone could attack them and steal their stuff or just get your head the F down and hope you don't get spotted.

Maybe even set up a large base somewhere they patrol out of, which could add another dimension to the gameplay.
 
Blizzard said:
Having configurable options is a strength of PC games, and I don't see a problem with leveraging that to allow players such as yourself to enjoy games on specific servers without all players being forced to have the same rule set.
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I'm not just trying to argue with you, I promise!

I think forcing the same ruleset would enrich the game a lot - much like EVE does with its single-shard server (everyone is in the same game with each other) a unified ruleset for games ensures that you don't just have a server for psychos (kill on sight hardcore mode!) but instead forces people to mix, from the psychos, the dickbags, and the douches all having to deal with each other as well as friendly people, helpful people, and more. Having stories about someone who sabotages a friendly group (or bandit group for instance) is what would make things even more exciting and we'd be able to see what grows out of it.
 
Toodles said:
EDIT: Case in point - I think a system whereby you can spawn with friends already in a group would be precisely the sort of thing that would dilute/remove the introductions of the story which the game seems to be wanting you to experience.
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How many times do you feel that a player should have to experience the 'introductions of the story' (that never changes)? The core of the game is the emergent experiences you will have through human interaction, friendly or otherwise. Walking along the Chernarus coast for an hour until you can meet up with your friends before you start the 'real' adventure doesn't sound like much fun to me, especially when you have to do it with every respawn.
 
Backfoggen said:
I still didn't find any loot after like 4 hours of playing. Also my game never ends in some sort of fight, it's always instantaneous.
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Some of the servers are bugged. One last night had no zombies or loot.

Sunflower said:
Server events could be incredible but tough to implement - having everyone on the server converge on a location. Fucking MADNESS. It'd be great.
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Rocket a few days ago said he was going to look into doing them. His idea was to make like a plane on fire that crashes. It would be really visible because its on fire. A large chunk of the server could see it and where it would crash. Then it would be a race to get there and loot it before everyone else.
 
I guess I missed it, is the Steam group chat for the official game group or is there a GAF-DayZ-specific one?

Chinner said:
so many fake joins. says im joining then bam full or kicked straight away
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A TF2-esque join queue would be nice if the server browser thing supports that.
 
apparnatly it's a problem that happens with steam. i had to verify arrowhead and i downloaded a nice file. sjhould be fine now.
 
Labombadog said:
Real quick: How do you open doors?

I tried looking at the Control options and couldnt find it.

Thanks :)
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If they can be opened, look at them, open your action menu and there should be an "Open Door"

Then you either press Enter or middle-mouse.

or when there's an action button when looking at it, middle click or enter as well - No need to open the menu.
 
Labombadog said:
Real quick: How do you open doors?

I tried looking at the Control options and couldnt find it.

Thanks :)
Click to expand...

A lot of doors can't be opened, but those that can will show a green symbol, kind of looks like this: |> <|

When you see that symbol, press the middle mouse button (or scroll mouse wheel to open door option).
 
This mod is seriously making me think of getting an actual PC.

Not PC gamed in years and there've been few things in that time that have legitimately made me think about spending the money and rearranging physical shit to accomodate a rig. This has done it more than any other.

Maybe I can play with you one day, fellow S.T.A.L.K.E.Rs survivors.
 
CHEEZMO™;37641297 said:
This mod is seriously making me think of getting an actual PC.

Not PC gamed in years and there've been few things in that time that have legitimately made me think about spending the money and rearranging physical shit to accomodate a rig. This has done it more than any other.

Maybe I can play with you one day, fellow S.T.A.L.K.E.Rs survivors.
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That time is now

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=455869

Join us.
 
Rad- said:
Hmm tried the OA demo and it ran well enough on lowest crappy looking settings. I'm thinking I'll jump on this.
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I think I was getting 30-60 fps at night with 1280x800, normal/low settings, on my e8400 and 5850. I turned off ingame vsync and used D3DOverrider for triple buffering and vsync.

The game looks so much better in the daytime from that helicopter video though, and I'm hoping my PC will look somewhat similar. I'm honestly kind of worried about getting eyestrain playing on night servers. I posted my screenshot and people said the gamma was too high? It'd be almost literally impossible to see if it was turned way down, not to mention putting you at a disadvantage to zombies and bandits. :P
 
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