DinoZ: Surviving And Thriving In The Stomping Land

The Stomping Land sprinted into my heart--much like Jeff Goldblum fleeing the T-Rex in Jurassic Park--and I've been anxiously awaiting more news from what appears to be DayZ with dinosaurs. The silence has been broken! Not hugely. Not like the roar of a T-Rex with a bellyful of goat, but more like the squirty trill of the dilophosaurus*. The developers have been updating their site for the past week with more information about character customisation, taming, and tracking. Follow the footprints to find out more.

Multiplayer dino survival is a great idea: the players will live in the world of the wandering beasts, fighting together and amongst themselves for a stomach full of raptor steak. Intriguingly, you'll only be able to kill the smaller creatures, meaning the larger animals will only die when two or more meet and fight. You'll be able to feed from the loser's corpse, which will provide a heartier meal than the small dinos. But to do that, you need to find them.

Tracking sounds very neatly thought out: the larger animals are represented by bright stars in the sky, and if you can see them you can follow the dot to the light. If the stars are together, you know there's a dino fight happening and a potential meal. The light won't tell you what sort of lizard is scraping gizzards, but you can also track footprints and listen for distant thumps and screams to help make that sort of judgement. This light will attract other hunters as well.

Which means it's probably best to not be spotted, which is where the customisation will help: as you live and grow in the world, you'll collect loose pieces of foliage that you can use to help define your character, and with each leaf you'll blend more and more into the backdrop.

You will have some power against the larger dinosaurs, though: as your character lives he gains Expertise. Come upon a dying dino and you have the opportunity to restore it to health. Doing so will make it your mount, and the more Expertise you have, the larger the resurrected beast can be. You can totally ride a Rex, and use it to defeat other hunters and the larger prey, though any death you suffer will wipe the Exp.

I am ready for this, and I can't wait for the cat expansion.

No word on a release, but I think the update is still ongoing. Check the site in a few days if you're super keen.

*I don't know a lot about dinosuars, but I do know a lot about Jurassic Park.