DayZ co-op organisation thread

[thebigJ_A]

We've already made a couple of camps, but it seems most tents/loot/vehicles and people are just at the one. I don't think we've compartmentalised knowledge of the camp locations at all.

There is an obvious downside: you might find another RPS camp completely unaware of it, and raid the tents and steal the vehicles there, if no-one was there at the time. That could actually be kinda funny, if that happened :) — I suppose you could get around it by a rule such as "all RPS camps will have one empty tin can in each tent and vehicle" or something like that.

Meanwhile, I've been pondering ways to make player life more valuable, or rather death more harsh, and have posted a suggestion on the DayZ forums. You'll probably hate it, but being the nice people you are, I hope you'll have a read of it anyway.

So your idea, on the co-op organization thread, is to kill cooperation in the game? Because that's what those ideas would do. They'd turn the game into even more of a deathmatch than it already is. You spawn, and you don't know anyone. The risks to yourself are so high, you're very unlikely to team up, as is everybody else. Now, let's say you do team up, one of you dies. Well, they're gone forever. You'd have to start over from scratch, take the insane risk, all over again, and for what? An inevitably extremely temporary alliance?

No, taken in whole, those ideas devalue the lives of others far too much. Everyone's always a stranger, there's no cameraderie to build up, no tit for tat (because there's nobody to get your tat from, the guy you gave tit to (shhhh!) is gone forever) nothing but threats to be avoided or killed.

So yep, I hate it, but not because it makes anything harder (it doesn't, not really) but because it would gut what makes the game special, the interpersonal relations.

[NovaPolice]

I had a lovely evening joining up with the forums' players, starting in Solinchiny. Somehow, after locating a hatchet, I found a bus (with a missing tire but otherwise in good repair) parked in the open by the factory there; while communicating with Barrow and Phalanx and Unruly on mumble, I snuck into the factory hoping for a tire and lucked out. We planned to meet up during this, and an atv got flipped and the others were trying to flip it back over while I got the bus running and out of town. We got into a neat little convoy (sans atv, its sacrifice will never be forgotten) and make it back to camp before the server shut down and possibly wiped out the bus or dumped it back in Solin, and the atv possibly in limbo and I got teleported into the Wilderness void of gear. Time to die.

The others logged off, so me and Unruly got onto a French server that had a few folk on it and was in daylight hours; he ended up a little lost and up near Novy Sobor, while I was in the thick of Chernogorsk. I lucked out and got some good supplies before having to shoot my way out of the second floor of a diner with an Enfield and a Makarov.

A great stack of bodies later, I hear the steps of a player. I ask "friend or foe?" over direct, he walks upstairs and tries to shoot me through the wall; his Mak can't penetrate, so he goes around the corner and gets a .303 round in the chest and a second in the head for good luck. Making my way out, I loot the firestation and discover a tragically busted bicycle and a delightfully working CZ 550/1911 combo, before rushing north to meet with Unruly.

Meeting on the road east of Vyshnoye took a while; besides the usual marching and looting and shooting of the undead, we had to locate one another. We finally figured out where we were in relation to one another when I capped a goat; our meeting was met with swapping gear, giving Unruly a crossbow for his sneaking missions and ammo and a rare box of infinite matches, giving me some odds and ends and blood, and a knife was lost to the ether when we poured our backpacks all over creation.

Lurking and scavenging deer stands on our way to Novy and Stary Sobor, I suggest we go up to Novy and work our way around through the trees to the north of Stary, as the military camp there can be a deathtrap; I cover Unruly, he makes his way down, I get eventually get bored and feel safe enough to go down and long story short we shot a lot of military zombies and learned a lot about crossbow trajectories. Gearing up, getting caught gearing up, shooting, and gearing up more we ended up with me taking a semi-auto shotgun, and Unruly replacing his crossbow and Glock with a CZ550 and .45 revolver.

We decided to log out, but we thought we might as well look in the barn and apartment building first. Then, we decided to log out but check out the church, which was indeed a prop church made of particle board and plaster but was next to a grocery store and more apartments and a real house. Deciding to log out, we ended up running, shooting, and actually managing to distract some zombies with a smoke grenade.

Deciding to find a safe place to log out for real and no buts or ifs, we headed north and found two deer stands, learning more about CZ sighting and the effective range of buckshot.

Finally filled to bursting with bullets and maps and backpacks and matches and water and blood and meats and drugs, we finally found a safe bush to blink out of existence. Fun was had by all, except for that guy I blew open and all those rabid people we had to put down and the goats and sheep we killed and that stop sign that got mowed down by a truck and that ATV that fell on its back and died like a tortoise.

Trusted vehicles The ATV and The Bus remain MIA on the Uganda server; a rescue of them would be a good idea. Also, I broke Unruly's legs by bumping into him in a shed, but luckily he jabbed a full syringe of morphine into the mainline and his fractures were fixed forever.

[wormball]

Hey guys, Gtok here.
I've unfortunatley been flooded out of my home the last few days (live in Todmorden) and not been on. From what i read here we have been robbed on our new Ugandan home?! I would agree that we have a mole somewhere. I reckon we should start spliting into smaller squads for stashing loot, then meeting up for larger operations when needed.
Thoughts?
Hopefully water will be drained tomorrow and i'll be up and running again, it is an interesting experience to have to wear a pair of wellingtons to make it out the front door!
G

I was on Friday and everything was ok, we started out with 2 bases on Uganda near each other one for cars one for stuff but they slowly got mixed up.

We've got to remember this is only an alpha so it's not the end of the world if we get robbed, when I was on there were sometimes nearly 10 people in one channel so keeping location of bases secret is awkward (change channel a couple of times to do it but I felt a right twat doing that)

[swubb]

Hi guys,

I got sick of playing alone so I tried to seek out you RPS guys on Uganda. I managed to find the camp and I might have startled some guys at first, but luckily noone shot ;). I got my own gear (m4 cco sd) and just looking to join some raids. I also brought a military offroad that I found near nw airfield, but I ran out of fuel and left it somewhere and it was gone when I went to get it. I'll see if I can get a mic and actually talk back on Mumble next time.

Cheers,
Sander

[vfig]

So your idea, on the co-op organization thread, is to kill cooperation in the game? … it would gut what makes the game special, the interpersonal relations.

The same incentives to cooperate remain: someone to watch your back, better able to collect loot, repair vehicles, and so on. But at the moment there is no incentive to cooperate with strangers, not when you have a group. I see no cooperation arising within the game, but only imported from out of the game, e.g. from people in the RPS mumble.

When you have a group imported into the game, it distorts the relationship you have with other players not in the group. Every stranger we meet is assumed to be an immediate threat (regardless of whether they actually are), and greeted with a bullet. We have no incentive to do otherwise, so there is no chance to build trust with other players—interpersonal relationships are just stillborn.

The disconnect between characters and servers is a further disincentive to form relationships within the game at present. Even if you team up with a stranger, you might well not see them again at another time not because they are dead, but because they (or you) have hopped to a different server.

As you say, the risks of interacting with strangers would be much increased. But contrary to your assertion, this would reduce the incentive to deathmatch, not increase it. The risks of death would be higher for both players in an encounter. The incentive to shoot on sight is lower—because of the associated risk of not killing the other player immediately, but alerting them (and possibly their friens) to your presence and location, and possibly being killed yourself. And your incentive to stay alive is much higher.

The greatest incentive on any encounter will no be to avoid conflict—to stay out of sight and move away (this is actually very much the case right now if you are alone and trying to survive, especially if you are uncertain if the person you see is also alone). Cooperation will require risks, and trust. The incentive to cooperate arises from the other game elements I mentioned. So if you want the greater rewards that cooperation can bring, you will need to take a greater risk.

[thebigJ_A]

The same incentives to cooperate remain: someone to watch your back, better able to collect loot, repair vehicles, and so on. But at the moment there is no incentive to cooperate with strangers, not when you have a group. I see no cooperation arising within the game, but only imported from out of the game, e.g. from people in the RPS mumble.

When you have a group imported into the game, it distorts the relationship you have with other players not in the group. Every stranger we meet is assumed to be an immediate threat (regardless of whether they actually are), and greeted with a bullet. We have no incentive to do otherwise, so there is no chance to build trust with other players—interpersonal relationships are just stillborn.

The disconnect between characters and servers is a further disincentive to form relationships within the game at present. Even if you team up with a stranger, you might well not see them again at another time not because they are dead, but because they (or you) have hopped to a different server.

As you say, the risks of interacting with strangers would be much increased. But contrary to your assertion, this would reduce the incentive to deathmatch, not increase it. The risks of death would be higher for both players in an encounter. The incentive to shoot on sight is lower—because of the associated risk of not killing the other player immediately, but alerting them (and possibly their friens) to your presence and location, and possibly being killed yourself. And your incentive to stay alive is much higher.

The greatest incentive on any encounter will no be to avoid conflict—to stay out of sight and move away (this is actually very much the case right now if you are alone and trying to survive, especially if you are uncertain if the person you see is also alone). Cooperation will require risks, and trust. The incentive to cooperate arises from the other game elements I mentioned. So if you want the greater rewards that cooperation can bring, you will need to take a greater risk.

Are you listening to yourself? I mean, in total? You're describing a game in which no one will ever work together. You'll either hide and run, or shoot.

No thanks.

But here, I'll go through your arguments.

Paragraph 1: Same incentive, with increased DISincentive, discourages the behavior you seek. And if you're not seeing people work together, except playing on RPS Mumble, it's because you're only playing with RPS on Mumble. Most people aren't doing that. I play with the RPS people because they're great (and I'm not so dismissive of interpersonal relationships brought in from outside), but I also play with other people. People I've met, and continue to meet, in game.

Paragraph 2: If a group is just shooting outsiders, and one dislikes that, why not change it? Group dynamics, it's the ultimate democracy. I don't see, though, how making it so you never, or very rarely, play with others is superior to playing within a group. Or even why playing in a group of ten is inferior to that ad hoc group of two.

Paragraph the third: So you want to change "might not" to "definitely not"? I team up with someone if we can communiate. If we can communicate, we can communicate to each other in the future, and meet up again. Your enforced server hop kills that dead.

4: I don't know about you, but the vast majority of times I've been killed, or killed another, only one side ever saw the other. In your scenario, if you see someone clearly, you will shoot them, or, if you don't think you can shoot them (and you over-sell the idea that there's this huge fear of firing, especially in your new loners-only world), you run and hide. Because, as you say, "

your incentive to stay alive is much higher."

And 5 just makes my point for me. There's already a huge risk involved in cooperating, but somehow you think making the risk greater, with no commensurate increase in the reward, tipping the scales even further away from the urge to work together, would be an improvement. I'm just not seeing it anywhere in what you've said so far.

There, I've said my piece. Hope to see you in-game! :)

[Wafflynumber]

Scouting excursion 25/06/2012

Our glorious scouting trip today, in the interest of security, to the far north-east netted us around 40 pieces of meat and an awesome motorbike (The details of which I cannot divulge, camp security etc).

We believe it was the bike reported in krasno airfield a few days ago. We also saw dead z's near olsha, which could indicate the owners activity in the area. Caution is advised when travelling that way :)

[Kefirz]

Hey vfig, well yea that idea might be a bit too extreme for us casual players because people want to have a good time and many of the times it includes meeting up with other friendly people and I think we should encourage non-hostile player interaction. And having a database for each server would benefit this more because this would mean that people who are playing here are regulars and they should be interested in the long run. But then again some of the servers would get very overloaded and impossible to get in.

As dayz gains popularity, anyone knows what LDDK or CIA are doing? Maybe they are playing dayz also and we could setup something.

[Barrow]

Trusted vehicles The ATV and The Bus remain MIA on the Uganda server; a rescue of them would be a good idea. Also, I broke Unruly's legs by bumping into him in a shed, but luckily he jabbed a full syringe of morphine into the mainline and his fractures were fixed forever.

The ATV actually rose from the dead after the restart (and, I believe, nobly gave it's life in the line of duty once again today). The bus wasn't by the factory when I logged in today, however we did find it sitting in Berezino later in the morning (which led to a whole other story of it's own; the short version is we still do not have a bus).

All that said, it was certainly a fun little adventure.

[unruly]

*snip*

Yea, last night was a lot of fun. The crossbow was a great weapon, but as soon as I got my hands on it we went from finding bolts everywhere to not finding any at all. And that initial arc that it has while shooting is crazy high, so my first handful of shots were completely off. Finally aimed for a zombies ass from 10 meters or so away and it gave him a not-quite-novelty joke arrow hat. It's completely different from my experience with crossbows in real life, which are pretty much straight-shooting nail drivers at that distance.

When we finally decided to log off for the 5th time in the span of 20 minutes, I was afraid it was going to be the death of me. Accidentally ran for half a second while still in town, aggroed a single zombie, and then pulled half of Stary Sobor with a shot from my revolver. I had a smoke grenade, and had heard that they worked wonders for distracting zombies, so I tossed it out with high hopes not realising that it was going to take a while to actually go off. So I'm getting hit by a couple zombies and shooting until it goes off, but it sure peeled everything off of me as soon as it started spewing smoke.

The thing with my hunting knife was weird though. I dropped my hunting knife since I had a spare in my backpack and it disappeared, or rather it turned into a pile of wood. By the time we got over the confusion of what happened with the knife, I had gone from two to none because I had originally thought that the knife didn't actually drop, so I dropped my remaining knife and gave it to Nova.

I'll be hopping on again tonight, hopefully around the same time. I've still got a few spare items like an extra watch and binoculars that I can give out.

[Barrow]

I'll see if I can get a mic and actually talk back on Mumble next time.

Cheers,
Sander

Hey Sander, good to hear from you. So you're aware, if you don't have a mic it's fine, but I strongly recommend at least replying to chat via the text messaging function on the left side of the Mumble window. Day Z is all about inciting paranoia in people, and having someone listening-in that seems unresponsive doesn't help. (=

[motherpuncher]

I finally updated my client. I also have 3 friend who just started playing. I will try and convince them to hook-up with you guys.

[Sarlac]

As the driver, I should not have taken us into town. That was really dumb.

[SuperÜ]

Whats this rumour about our camp being raided?

Please say this is just a rumour.

[vfig]

@thebigJ_A

So you want to change "might not" to "definitely not"? I team up with someone if we can communiate. If we can communicate, we can communicate to each other in the future, and meet up again. Your enforced server hop kills that dead.

I’m glad you brought up communication, because you’re right: cooperation is not possible without good communication. And the communication options within the game right now are not good (direct voice is a nice idea, but in practice its range is too limited, you don't get aural feedback to know how loud you are, and anyway the quality is very poor). In addition, there is no way at present to leave written messages, except by scrawling them on the map for all to see (if you have a map)—so unless you are in the same place at the same time, you can’t communicate at all. That rather limits all cooperation attempts that aren’t externally organised, even in the game as it is right now.

I still think you greatly underestimate the chances of cooperation in my scenario. Most people aren’t sociopaths, and will generally respond positively to other players, especially when they are shown trust. But we can argue about that until the cows come home—I think it would need to be tried to prove it one way or the other, and in my original post I outlined several unrelated reasons why that can’t happen right now.

Anyway, I will keep musing on the mechanics of DayZ. The game it first seemed to be when I started playing it—one of survival, and exploration, and uncertain interactions with other players—appears now to be gone, replaced by loot grinding, and disconnect exploits, and near-certain hostile players. I miss what it was, because it was so much more emotionally involving for me.

[Wafflynumber]

Whats this rumour about our camp being raided?

Please say this is just a rumour.

Its true.

Near pobeda dam there's a camp with the Ural and red uaz from base as well as 2 tents and barbed wire. Do not take 'em as they're being used as a honeypot for the raiders.

[Mr Wonderstuff]

Well if they are reading this forum they will certainly know now. :-(

[Barrow]

Nothing like having all of your worldly possessions stripped from you to set you on the warpath. As a small update, it sounds like we've discovered a few camps that had some of our goods in them, and so far Very Bad Things™ have happened to them both. We're still on the lookout for the main culprits, though, last I heard, and I believe we're saving the best for last.

Honestly, though, we probably deserved it. Having dozens of people constantly coming and going from a central location without a care in the world, the location itself lit up with a shanty town of tents and cars brighter than neon signs, it was only a matter of time (though, the timing of what appears to be multiple groups hitting us at once is a point of concern). Perhaps when we rebuild we will also restructure base layout and dispersion with security in mind.

In any case, it gives us some new activities to see to, which is a silver lining on such a particularly dark cloud.

[SuperÜ]

Just as a quick post, we reclaimed a v35 and a military off road
with a butt load of our weapons that we managed to reclaim from REDACTED

Awaiting at a secure location to pre-empt and restructure of bases!

[khomotso]

I have doubts about the whole big base dynamic. It sets up a situation where we all tend to do a lot more traveling (or asking for pickups), and putting a lot of effort into the care and feeding - or simply hoarding - of something that, at the end of the day, is simply unprotectable. It doesn't seem like a very good idea to sink so much resource into such a leaky vessel.