Suggestions 1 - 4

[Lerxst]

Let me start by saying, "WOW!"  I just discovered this game, not through Steam, but by searching a variety of key words involving "realism" and "survival".  A day later, I paid money for it  

 

I've been a fan of DayZ, but the shortcomings of it being based off a FPS engine and the various bugs and hacks make it an exercise in futility many times.  The lack of some "true" RPG elements like skills, make it feel like a shooter, rather than a RPG and attract the similar type of crowd.  Not to mention the "free mod" attracts a certain player base that a specially designed, retail game wouldn't.

 

Just for some background - I come from 30+ years of video game playing and helped design and build some of the earliest forms of MMOs on the Internet - MUDs (but I'm a writer, not a programmer!).  I've also done a lot of map design and world building in other games like Anarchy Online and TF2, so my experience is pretty varied.  Not trying to sound like a jackass, just trying to say these following ideas aren't completely unfounded!

 

Alright, I think I've read through as many of the suggestion posts I can think of before writing this one up so, hopefully, I won't be repeating too much.

 

I'm thinking of long-term, multiplayer servers when it comes to this game.  From what's present in Alpha and some of the planned additions, I can still see some areas lacking that might sneak up and rear their ugliness down the line.

 

Resources 

 

Resources are the key issue here.  Depending on how the multi-player aspect will be implemented, PZ actually suffers from the opposite effect most other MMO games would in terms of its economy.  Other games spawn creatures with items that go on endlessly.  Eventually the supply outweighs the demand and everything loses value, inflation skyrockets prices and the economy resembles 1930's Germany.

 

In PZ, not only is there no real monetary system, but the map spawns with all the resources already in place.  This means as time goes by, resources are going to dwindle more and more until there's nothing left.  Weapons are going to break, food will rot, anything not made of wooden boards will get scarce (even nails get used up unbarricading).

 

I don't know the exact format the multi-player option will take, but any game server that has even 20 or 30 people on it will eventually run out of resources soon enough!

 

Suggestion 1

 

Skill - Salvage (Passive skill)

 

When an items breaks there's an X chance of reclaiming some of the non-renewable components (IE - Ax head, knife blade, etc).  The higher the skill, the more parts can be salvaged until it's close to 100%

 

Skill - Tinkering (Active skill)

 

Allows player to construct basic materials from resources - Rope from cloth/grass/weeds - and assemble more complex items - Rope + Ax head + Stick = Ax. 

 

I'll admit, if you've played Xsyon, you may have seen some of this already...

 

The combination of the two would allow for continued use of weapons and resources similar to the ones initially available, well after the initial cache has been looted and destroyed.  Things like the big chunks of metal could be reused at relatively low levels and the smaller pieces, reused at higher levels... even the pioneers were notorious for reusing their old hardware from old buildings to build new ones!

 

Other players:

 

There's going to come a time when the zombies just don't pose too much of a threat anymore.  Barring some meta-event, even in the movies, the survivors eventually have to face the reality of dealing with one another as the zombies take a back seat.

 

I'm fine with this.  I love hard-core PVP-RPGs   But as is the nature of the Internet, different people will be logged in various times of day and not be able to defend their stashes from looters while they're asleep at 3:00 am in the real world.

 

Suggestion 2 & 3 - Introduce a "claim" option as well as NPC followers who can guard your "claim".

 

Be it a building, or an area inside a fence.  Once you mark an area as claimed, you can tell your NPCs to guard it, who will attack anyone looting/destroying/stealing/taking any item in the area.  If your NPC's die and there's no one left to guard your area, the other person can then claim it as theirs and so on and so forth.

 

Death penalty

 

Even though I'm for the hard-core PvP aspect, I find it hard to accomplish any kind of perm death like Minecraft has, while still appealing to a player base.  Basically, punishing a player by telling them they can't play on a server anymore, when you only have a limited amount of players to begin with and limited servers might be too extreme.

 

I also don't think people should just "re pop" right after death and shrug it off as though nothing happened.

 

Suggestion 4 - Re-roll

 

Yep, that simple, exactly as we do now in the single-player alpha.  You die, start a new character.  Any NPC followers you may have, get disbanded.  Everyone (NPC) treats you as an outsider and all your skills are reset.  The only benefit you'll have is knowing where your safehouse was located so you can easily restock and get supplies.

 

In this case, I'd actually suggest keeping things exactly as they already are.  It may seem redundant to point this out, but soooooooooo many games have screwed the pooch by adding "features" later on that destroy the original gameplay.

[Szkeptik]

Some good ideas there. Some comments:

 

# 1 - It's not a bad idea, but I think such a skill should only become really useful when it's maxed out. We don't want to dissuade people from exploring further because they have level 2 tinkering and now they can use the same knife for a year. Though when you look at the sheer size of the gameworld, I find it difficult to believe that someone can loot it all before getting zombified.

 

#2-3 - I think of multiplayer games more in the context of rather large groups of survivors. So 8-10 people from around the world IRL comprise the group so at least 2-3 can always be up to protect the safehouse. Of course guard NPC-s are a good idea to bolster the ranks in case the horde lays siege. 

 

#4 - Actually I think keeping the supplies is unrealistic. It makes restarts too easy if I know from the get go that I just have to reach that house and I'm golden. Loot should get redistributed on restart IMO.

[stormsson]

in these suggestions the one i mostly agree with is the first one: 

 

In a multiplayer environment i believe it could be quite dangerous to underestimate the survival times of a group of players: and their "tools" consumption rate. 

 

I believe that given a decent amount of time, every survivor should be able to craft his/her primary needs.

[gekkobear]

#1 and #2... not in vanilla I know; but look at the WIP "Recycling" Mod.

 

http://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php/topic/2415-recycling/

 

I have great hopes for that Mod for doing exactly what you say (and more). 

 

I'm not sure of the balance, and it's listed as being noisy and time consuming; but getting metal scrap from "junk" items and using them to make other metal items.  Especially with limited resources and multiple players the ability to "recycle" metal/cloth/etc. into more workable items from excess frying pans/forks/etc. would be a nice addition.