DayZ and griefing

Haven't played Arma 2:CO yet though have purchased it based on recent reviews from friends and such. Probably the only reason I haven't played was the Diablo festival of sitting in the chair playing with error 37 and other numbers and dying internally everytime they killed my achievements off with their numerous rollbacks, disconnects and bugged out achievement redo's on the same toon.

I think it will be interesting to see if armed communities will end up developing out of the groups and whether future enhancements to the DayZ mod will enable that, otherwise I think that an eventual spiral into chaos will develop over time with the general inability to be more than a scavenger amongst other scavengers ekeing out a temporary existance till death strikes. You do not survive the apocalypse, you merely survive till it gets to you. Resources are definitely the lockdown as to whether that can happen. The only other aspect I could see might be the introduction of infection into players themselves but I think that would kill it for many players. The irony of an increased number of players into a game mod that is essentially the death of mankind I find warming though. I do find it interesting that the community health based on your links seems quite strong and you can definitely read the emotion they have invested into their experiences.


I of course have no direct experience in the game as of yet but those were my general impressions from an outside perspective. No doubt I will update with a new post with a refined opinion as well hate for the toon called Hodgman who put a bullet in my brainpan before rifling my pockets for the car keys.

Okay I now have an opinion. After many intensive hours of playing the DayZ mod (for Arma 2 - Combined Operations) dying numerous times - mostly from zombies, once to a survivor, once to a bandit (no it was not Hodgman if you might ask) and once ignominiously by failing to realise that if you don't drink when the red light is flashing soon enough you will actually start bleeding to death as a secondary consequence.


DayZ is (if you want to be a nice guy), the epitome of paranoia. You do not know who to trust. When you think you know who to trust they sacrifice you to the zombies, shoot you in the back, get you to use the flashlight so that you are unarmed then shoot you. But this is merely the betrayal aspect. Let me tell you about the fog of war - Lying down in the grass in Cherno near the church I sit back and watch as four people converge on the church, all survivors (friendly folk to the uninitiated) all talking through chat so they can meet up and trade some goods and get some blood transfusions. The first guy there throws down a flare (let me just say flares are very powerful in this game), the second guy turns up - so far so good. The third gentleman not being the canny sneaker manages to bring some zombies chasing after him followed by the fourth guy chasing after the zombies to help the third guy. He shoots the zombies but somehow manages instead to hit the third guy who having just entered the flare outside the church suddenly realises he is being "attacked by the two people in the church (or so he believes), Shots erupt from him into the church and at this point the flare goes out. All four players are crying out friendly and that there must be a bandit who turned up. End result: around 20 zombies dead on the ground, 4 players dead as a result of shooting each other and the zombies they attracted with gunfire. The "mystery bandit" remains silent and after about an hour of griping in chat they start piecing it together. Moral for the day - do your trades in daylight hours...the night is dark, very dark unless of course you adjust your settings to max brightness (not all servers enable that though )


Earlier tonight when I loaded in on a DayZ server I literally zoned in just as a party of two enter the building (Note: of the bugs that exist in the game - the most unreasonably bad one is players need to give each other space inside buildings or you will glitch the collision systems or something like that and get broken bones - that and zombies attacking through walls if you are next to them.). A brief re-assurance to each other that we are all friendly and no problem -- I leave quickly regardless. A short time later the same two come to the aid of a survivor in need of a blood pack and instead shoot and loot the poor unfortunate.


One gentleman I met over the chat channels plays only on one server -- Somewhere out there he has two tents filled with gear and spends his entire time going out for more gear to bring back to the tents -- Effectively building an arsenal for an easy re-equipping of gear if he should die.
Bandits (or player killers) are an interesting crew - some work solo - many work together in teams and most of them read the chat when survivors talk to each other - Don't say where you are exactly in chat...this will get you shot. I like the survivor crossing into bandit mode for player killers. Bandits tend to hide a lot more like trap door spiders and shoot from a distance, stumble across you and shoot first while you are typing "friendly?" or work with a couple of others to cleanse entire neighbourhoods. Don't run into other people's flares - you are simply saying "look at the giant bullseye I have become". Many player killers make use of continuity of character through multiple servers and server hop the same location for the loot spawns building up large supplies of ammunition for their high powered rifles and then go find a vantage point to throw down some long range lead into whoever appears.

It is a really good time to be had. Yes, it is an alpha so many many bugs still exist, the interface has improved since I started playing but still remains fairly crappy. The zombies stagger, belly crawl, bunny hop around on their various routes. When they go active (i.e. scent fresh brains), they run fast, they run at you with direction changes, they climb ladders, they travel with friends and every time you fire any zombie within the immediate range of the gunfire come running, the range increases and decreases with the type of gun and noise produced.


I think the griefing solution is neatly done but in some respects is almost a superfluous reality when it comes to the sheer amount of death through friendly fire and other survivor's paranoia.


Edit: As an update the entire bandit/survivor change has been removed http://dayzmod.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=3693