The Shrine

My buddy convinced me recently to buy ARMA II in order to play the mod Day Z. This game is the best example of the Walking Dead the game that isn't related to the Walking Dead.

This is an example of a play session.

[9:59 AM] Me: Parker, James, and myself were raiding an airfield/barracks a couple of nights back and we knew we were probably walking into a shit show
[9:59 AM] Me: James decides to take a vantage point in a tower in order to snipe and have vision for us
[10:00 AM] Me: We go into a control room and the only way in is climbing up a ladder
[10:00 AM] Me: so we get up the ladder and notice one of the hangars open and parker pull out his scope riffle and sees some other survivors
[10:01 AM] Buddy: other players or NPCs?
[10:01 AM] Me: human
[10:01 AM] Me: he tries to take a shot and misses... but one of the other survivors pulls out his riffle and caps parker in the dome.
[10:01 AM] Me: Parker starts to bleed out and lose conciousness and I have to bandage him
[10:02 AM] Me: So I get him bandaged and get him some painkillers
[10:03 AM] Me: I then give him some cooked meat from my bags (you can hunt animals in the wilderness and cook steaks)
[10:03 AM] Me: The steaks give him back health (blood)
[10:03 AM] Me: Meanwhile James in the tower has been dealing with zombies coming up and trying to maul him while he tries to get an opening to cap the guys in the hangar
[10:04 AM] Me: So after Parker is back to some kind of shape we might be able to get out we realize we're pinned down and our only option is to sprint out of the building we're in and avoid gettinng capped.
[10:05 AM] Me: So I take the Leeroy Jenkins role and start to make my way out of the building
[10:06 AM] Taber: I end up aggoring a few zombies as I run out, but because I acted as bait one of the dudes tries to come out and cap me, but James like a fucking ace kills the asshole
[10:07 AM] Me: So I'm dealing with the zombies I aggroed, and more come when they hear the gunshots. So I think I'm down and out but all 3 of us gather together kill the zombies and eventually get out of the airbase
[10:07 AM] Me: James had to crawl out because he had broken a leg in the fight

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9IaNWNx0No

That sounds very cool, but I don't like the direction people seem to go with other survivors. I think the video was kinda disturbing, since they get into a car, and their first thought is to execute the drivers. I get that this is a survival game, and sometimes survival goes in those directions, but the zombies should be the real enemy here, and shooting humans should only be a desperation move.

SineSwiper wrote:That sounds very cool, but I don't like the direction people seem to go with other survivors. I think the video was kinda disturbing, since they get into a car, and their first thought is to execute the drivers. I get that this is a survival game, and sometimes survival goes in those directions, but the zombies should be the real enemy here, and shooting humans should only be a desperation move.

The video is not the best example, it just happens to be one of my favorite Starcraft 2 streamers having dicking around in the game.

My friends and I were on voice chat last night discussing the game and how you can make the game not be a giant grief fest, which it is bound to become. The big question was how do you make playing with other people worthwhile instead of just murdering them for their weapons, food, medical supplies, etc. It is a very big hurdle the game is going to have to jump in order to be viable, especially if they increase the server cap to 200. There needs to be a party system implemented in the game eventually. There is no way to really tell your friends from others. The mod is still in alpha and the creator is an actual employee of ARMA II. This mod has been responsible for keeping ARMA II in the top sellers of STEAM lately. More than likely this game might become its own thing and the creator mentioned going about it using the Minecraft model.

http://youtu.be/kK5vRoq_2bA

I tried to try it for "free", and managed to get it to work for certain servers...but man, it is cumbersome to set up and very sloppy.

Got me thinking though, someone somewhere must be working on an actual zombie apocolypse MMO. Talk about a solid idea. Permadeath characters running around, scavanging, joining up with others, a real sandbox MMO. License to print money if done right...people are tired of WoW-clones.

People are equally tired of zombie games in general, i believe, even if it is an MMO.

kali o. wrote:I tried to try it for "free", and managed to get it to work for certain servers...but man, it is cumbersome to set up and very sloppy.

Got me thinking though, someone somewhere must be working on an actual zombie apocolypse MMO. Talk about a solid idea. Permadeath characters running around, scavanging, joining up with others, a real sandbox MMO. License to print money if done right...people are tired of WoW-clones.

It's an Alpha... so cumbersome and sloppy go hand in hand.

Totalbiscuit did a play session/interview with the game creator and he talked a bit about the idea of the Sandbox style and Eve Online:

http://youtu.be/Sj9Tih-esfw

The game reminds me of what my friends described of the old Ultima Online days where you could do all kinds of crazy things. I'm excited to see what this becomes in 6 months.

Not sure I agree about people being generally bored with zombie games. Dead State looks like it'll be amazing. There's a lot of stuff to explore with zombies in video games, it's just a shame a lot of the finished games so far have just been rigid first person shooters... or shitty.

Flip wrote:People are equally tired of zombie games in general, i believe, even if it is an MMO.

People are bored of games in general if they are boring and formulaic. I think DayZ having a permadeath system and a meta games of Human vs Human vs Zombie is something worthy of being explored. I'm having a ton of fun with this Mod.

Recreating a moment from Walking Dead.

Shane and Otis:
http://youtu.be/m1145-xJIsg