I might turn this into a blog post, but if I open up Wordpress rather than a gist editor I'll think too much and end up not posting anything. So...
I'm finding DayZ Standalone to be a really compelling experience. At lot of this I owe to the fact that I'm playing with @Thayer, @bamblesquatch, @tomnatt and @dsfan10 who are fun to play with. But the game itself, even at this early stage, has a lot to get hooked on.
Firstly, its a really beautiful game. I've spent several sessions just roaming the landscape away from all of the towns, cities, zombies and other players. In the dreary, wet winter evenings it's nice to drop-into an "eternal day" server and just roam the countryside.
Secondly, the survival mechanics, whilst still being developed, are nuanced and more complex than I've seen in other FPS's that I've played. The need to regulate hydration, food intake, health, bleeding and shock, makes the simple fact of finding and collecting food and water and protecting oneself a time-consuming task.
The early game experience of finding basic equipment and then weapons speaks to my inner collector. Looting just one more house for that elusive item you need, or rearranging backpack and clothing storage to provide optimal access to equipment triggers my compulsive side. Even after stepping away from the game I find myself thinking about the next leg of my journey: even though I may have been over the same ground multiple times in different incarnations.
I feel a little inured to the permadeath aspect of the game. I've learnt my lessons from Dark Souls and Demon Souls and enjoy the repeated journey. Largely, anyway. I've mourned a few fully tooled up characters.
But now once you've got to the point where you're fully hydrated, energised and healthy, its not always clear what to do next.
The "content" in DayZ is really about what you want to do in-game. Want to be a hero and help other survivors, or be a bandit and prey on others. Or maybe you can just be a tourist and explore all of the out of place areas.
There seems to be a tendency for many people to default to being bandits. And, like a lot of FPS player behaviour its not alway nice but not everyone's encounters are the same and there's a variety of behaviours. Hey are you cool documents some interesting encounters.
So ultimately DayZ is what you make of it and is defined as much by the people you play with as the people you meet. We are the NPCs.
I got to wondering what kind of "endgame" missions we could try to add a bit for fun. Or simply create interesting encounters for other people. No doubt people are trying all kinds of things already. So I've written down a few possibilities. I know some of these are dumb, but they're a start.
Visit all locations of a specific type, using the same spawn. If you're playing as a team either you all need to complete it together on the same spawn, or there has to be continuity. Take a selfie or group photo to record each location.
Examples (with cheesy achievement names): *"Frequent Flyer" loot all of the airports on the map with the same spawn. Take a selfie from the top of the control towner in each.
- "Supermarket Sweep" (visit all the supermarkets);
- "Fireman Sam" (all the firestations);
- "Bob The Builder" (all the construction sites),
- or "Trains, Boats and Planes" (visit the shipwreck, plane crash, and each train station)
Find the brightest clothing possible, e.g. that nice yellow raincoat and a red hat, and with no weapons run the gauntlet down the coast from Berezino, through Elektro, Cherno and then to Balota airfield. No stopping to loot and you must go through all of the main streets.
Head to the east coast and defend as many new spawns from bandits as possible.
Variation of above, but setup an aid station in one of the houses or villages along the east coast. Ferry over food, water and equipment for new spawns to get started quicker.
Either make it a free-for-all or dole out items.
You could do a "secret santa" variant and just drop useful items in unexpected places close to respawns.
Choose a smaller town on a busy route. Clear out all of the zombies and then defend it from other players. You can let other friendlies in to loot, etc but hold off any bandits. This has more potential once zombie and loot respawns are in the game. Basically its appropriating an area of the map as a base.
The next few releases look like they will have additional survival mechanics including hunting, crafting, cooking, etc. How long could you survive in the wilderness without heading into a town or city?
Some of the DayZ mods had airdrops or similar caches of items. We could create these missions for ourselves. For example by collecting together useful loot, e.g. a weapons cache, and then hiding it somewhere accessible but unexpected. We just need a way to share co-ordinates/locations/clues.
One option would be to use the walkie talkies. E.g. drop a walkie-talkie in a high traffic area and then, from a safe distance, give out instructions about where the loot can be found.
Or, once its re-introduced, drop paper clues in obvious locations, e.g. surroundeded by other loot in a town square or middle of the road.
These are automatically time-boxed by server restart times.
There's nothing especially innovative in those suggestions and I'm sure people are already playing in similar ways. What are your ideas?