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“Okay, we’re going to belly crawl through this town to the church here.” Bob said, stabbing his finger down on the map in front of him. The paper shifted slightly under the pressure of his fingertip, and with considerable care he adjusted it back to its original position, centered just under the monitor. I was trying to pay attention while he and Richard hashed out their battle plans, I really was. But after spending an hour trying to find a server that wouldn’t drop us and then another hour of running to find a town to be able to raid, I was fighting an urge to alt-tab and start checking Facebook.
“Why do we need to belly crawl?” I asked “Why don’t we just pick a barn and start gunning them down?” My character inched forward in a crouch walk, trodding over their prone bodies, absolutely heedless of Richard’s hissed warnings.
“That might attract attention!” Bob remarked, reaching over to stab at my keyboard. My character laid down. “Now, we’ll move west to the third building then- “
“Which way is West?” I interrupted
“What do you mean which way is West?”
“It’s night on this server and there’s no compass.”
“Tara, we went right past Zelenogorsk. Didn’t you read the sign?”
“I didn’t see a Zelenogorsk. I saw a “3,” an “e,” a“V”, a backwards “N”, part of a square...”
“Tara...”
“JUST FUCKING TELL ME RIGHT OR LEFT!”
“Left! Left! Jesus.” We belly crawled to the church which ended up being loaded with supplies. “Okay now we’ll go to this town up North and hit up these barns.” Bob instructed his brother over his headset.
“Why?” I asked.
“Why?” Bob repeated, a note of surprise in his voice.
“We’re armed to the teeth! Why do we need more supplies?” Bob looked back at his monitor and continued relaying directions to his brother. I could tell he was going to ignore me from now on. We crawled out of the buildings and started making our way to the next town. A long, slow and painful belly crawl into the barns later and we now had the task of deciding which new supplies to pick up and which to ignore. Bob and Richard were in their element. Their voices were hushed over Mumble, eyes trained on their screens for any sign of movement, hand and fingers ready to convey the commands that would keep their toons alive. There was so much tension in the air you could practically feel--
<KA-BLAM!>
“Tara did you just fire your gun??” Bob gasped after a short stunned pause.
“He looked at me funny.” I replied, firing at the next zombie that came into view. The zombies were piling in now. Dozens of them. Lining up like ducks before the open doors while we discharged our weapons again and again trying to stem the endless tide. Expletives were flying, most of them aimed at me. Bob went down with a zombie on top of him which Richard and I quickly dispatched. After an intense two minutes all was finally quiet. Bob’s character sat eating, healing from the ordeal. A silence briefly settled over our group but the tension was still thick in the air. A red, angry tension.
“Well,” I said. “That was fun. Let’s clear out another town.”
I just don’t have fun in DayZ. My problem with it, apart from the fact that it can take an hour to even start playing, is that there isn’t a goal apart from “stay alive” and once you’ve mastered moving around the world, the only thing that can threaten that goal is another player (or a bored team member with a Winchester rifle). Once you’re done hunting down supplies and ammo, there really is nothing to do. You can’t retake the world because the zombies simply respawn. You can’t build a fortress and begin re-populating the human race because there is no contextual menu to initiate a quick knobbing and no way to interact with the world apart from setting up a tent. All you can do is find some sort of vehicle, fix it, and drive it around.
For me, that’s a “Whoop-de-fuckin’-do.”
DayZ is a game where you need to make your own objectives but the problem is that those objectives are spectacularly limited. This means that someone who has the attention span of a gnat (this guy!) is either going to get bored and stop playing, or get bored and start hunting other players for their entertainment.
There is however, one important way DayZ can be fun: As a way to hang out with friends. DayZ is very similar to MMO’s in that the gameplay is significantly less fun than the people you play with. Sure the “intense struggle to survive” aspect is fun, but once the fear wears off it’s just another survival horror game. The best way to play DayZ is to get a community together, make a goal and set out to accomplish it. During the gameplay there will be banter and at the end of the evening, there will be shared experiences and stories that you can bring up years after the fact like I have with WoW. Psychologically, these sorts of games help us feel connected to one another as human beings, even if it’s through a digital medium.
In a way, videogames are the new soccer teams: A weekly/daily gathering of a group of people who may play competitively, but mostly are just there for fun and to hang out with friends. It’s a way for people who live across the county, or even in different countries, to interact with one another without needing to leave their homes. It was this social aspect that kept me playing WoW, and it's this social aspect that could possibly get me into playing DayZ.
But I doubt it.
Comments
12 years, 4 months ago
thanks for being one of the fabled few who don't see the appeal behind this "game"
12 years, 4 months ago
Zombies are just the worst... Need more clerics to do more undead un-murdering
12 years, 4 months ago
That was a good read. I did see some gameplay on the feed once, and all I saw was a bunch of running and bland zombie chases. But from that party bus video i saw on youtube, it seemed way more fun since there were more people around. I'd still try DayZ out to see what it's all about.
12 years, 4 months ago
It's still a mod. A very early mod. If this can be fleshed out into an entire game somewhere down the line, it'll be fantastic. The point of Day Z is definitely not getting a group of friends together to play. The social aspect is supposed to be about meeting strangers, not your friends. If that's why you would decide to play the mod, I'd imagine there are a lot better suited alternatives. I don't even enjoy playing the game itself, but the possibilities of what this could eventually become is exciting.
12 years, 4 months ago
I would be able to get into the game if there was more consistency. Too many glitchy things happen in the game that can ruin a good run for you for example I've seen a guy get knocked unconscious and receive broken legs because someone hit him with a chem light. It's hilarious yeah, but also ridiculous. Then you have controls for things that are never used outside of hilarity for Youtube and yet simple actions like picking up things can be damn near impossible depending on where you are in relation to it and whether you're standing or not, just makes me not want to play it outside of hanging with friends. I think objective game modes would help as well, but it seems like you'd have to create that fun yourself.
12 years, 4 months ago
In all fairness, Bob over thinks the game like crazy and probably ain't the most entertaining partner you can get.
12 years, 4 months ago
This is a great read, Tara!
12 years, 4 months ago
I would love to see the ability to create forts, but the problem is that, people will be able to easily pop into your base by hopping servers.
But yeah, once you learn where things spawn you can get geared up easily. In less than an hour I usually am fully geared.
12 years, 4 months ago
So basically, you're too impatient to make your way through the world without gunning down everything that moves, too incompetent to stand a chance against other players and not imaginative enough to make up your objectives. Move along, this isn't meant to be a game for everyone. There's people who know they want to play DayZ the moment they hear about it, and those who don't see the appeal in the game. There isn't any point in trying to convince them to change their minds.
Please keep in mind that DayZ is in alpha. From what I've heard, the game's developers are working on releasing the game in a stand-alone form, and one of the features they are considering is the ability for players to construct bases. I'm sure that, as the game development progresses, there will be more lategame for players to enjoy.
12 years, 4 months ago
I have a love-hate relationship with DayZ. I love it when I encounter other players, find good gear and have those crazy moments where I barely survive.
However..that takes up probably 5% of the game. The rest consist of crawling and travelling between places that takes ages and then ending up in you restarting because you get killed by some bullshit or do not want to spend the next 20min crawling because of the amount of zombies. Maybe I should work on my patience
12 years, 4 months ago
DayZ is still a work in process, so I definitely won't pin much criticism on it..yet. As it stands though, it does have it's issues, but is certainly snow balling its way into being awesome!
12 years, 4 months ago
I do like this mod. Even if my PC can barely keep it chugging along and annoyances such as bugs and glitches can frustrate me, I keep at my objective. However, I have to agree wholeheartedly with your point on a lack of continuity of gameplay. Sometimes after I get the obligatory rifle, pistol, ammo, food, and water from a town that I ran through in a few minutes, I end up jumping off a building or running into a town firing madly, just so I can start over. I do this because, to me, after I have gotten my supplies I feel as there is little left to do. But, believe me, I know this is my problem, and not the mods.
12 years, 4 months ago
Which is why we should all play The War Z once it comes out. :V
12 years, 4 months ago
You have pretty much summed up my thoughts on this game. Good read, Tara :D
12 years, 4 months ago
It's like I'm really on Kotaku!
12 years, 4 months ago
I feel the same way about Minecraft; once you've made things sustainable and you've built your first few "projects" there's no real reason to keep going, it's pointless and boring.
And to those who say "it's not for everyone, you make your own objectives" I call that bad design. To only survive is only fun when you're actually struggling to survive. Once that becomes easy then it's just a bunch of dinking around. It becomes much less like a zombie survival scenario and more about the "party bus" or other GTAIV-esque nonsense with friends. Which can be fun, but much better in... GTAIV and the like.
Better design; designate one area of the map that spawns zombies like crazy. Large town/city etc. Within is either the best equipment or a "win" scenario. That way once you make it out of the survival stage into competence, you still have a real goal and a real challenge ahead.
OR
After a certain amount of time (or after enough of the players in a server have either lived long enough or acquired enough loot) start spawning in military AI - soldiers at first, then vehicles - that are hostile to both players (since who knows who's infected) and zombies alike. All of a sudden there's a third party that could help you by clearing zombies or hurt you by blasting your face off. Low level or "good" characters will sneak around and use the military presence to their advantage, higher level or "bad" characters can actually fight back.
12 years, 4 months ago
If you like a game guys just keep playing it. Even if it doesn't have a clear objective! You can take risk in Day Z, like running across the field or shooting most of the zombies you come across nothing will happen though.
12 years, 4 months ago
The aimlessness sounds a lot like the problem lots of people had with Minecraft.