Somewhat related: I saw an old Dslyecxi Twitter discussion lamenting on how third person perspective had taken over all the DayZ clones and Battle Royale clones. Kids love to be able to see around corners.
It also helps sell cosmetic gewgaws.
Has anyone played DayZ recently?
I had great fun with it both when the mod first released (around June 2012) and when the EA access standalone version released. I haven’t been back since.
Besides maybe STALKER there isn’t really any other game that has captured the pacing and atmosphere of DayZ at its best. There would be long periods of peaceful silence traversing beautiful landscapes then suddenly your serene world would erupt in hellfire as a stranger opened fire on your position. Sometimes others would surprise and ambush me and other times I would stalk another player for a lengthy period waiting for the right moment to strike.
Some of the survival spin-offs like Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds and H1Z1’s King of the Kill take a different lesson and boil the whole experience down to just the tense encounters (which is nice when you don’t have a lot of time) but they lack the full experience of lengthy lonely periods that build dread between the intense firefights.
Why yes I have good sir.
Mini DayZ: I recently saw mention of a phone app and browser game (just found that out) called Mini DayZ. I’ve been playing that on my phone and have been really enjoying it. It does a great job of boiling the core DayZ experience down to a 2D sprite-based isometric(?) view version. The app even has some of the memorable and iconic sounds from the PC game, building art that looks like a great 2D rendering of actual buildings from the Arma2 map, and even a little inventory jank to pull on those nostalgia strings. The F2P aspects are non-invasive and optional. You can basically treat the game as a free version. If you want you can opt to get a supply drop near your survivor by watching a mobile ad but I found the supply drops to be lackluster and not worth bothering with so safely ignored altogether. I haven’t made it very far, even on Novice mode, but it’s an app I keep firing up to test my luck and see if I can get farther next time.
DayZ Proper: I played the actual DayZ mod when it first came out and then put another 40+ hours in the retail release when that first became available on Steam. I haven’t been back in a while but playing Mini DayZ got me in the mood for some more of this formula. I have some of the strongest memories and standout moments from DayZ that few other games can replicate. I reinstalled this weekend and went back in blind.
Wow, this game has improved a lot! The 64 bit executable ran really well and the graphical overhaul is breathtaking. DayZ is one of the best hiking simulators in our hobby and the ambiance is top-notch (trees and vegetation sway in the breeze now ). Jank still remains (especially inventory though much improved) and I accidentally drank disinfectant while trying to open a door so that run didn’t go well. A fresh respawn has gone much better though I have a lingering sickness from eating raw worms.
I spent a lot of time alone trying to chart the land I was on and searching buildings and generally learning to play again. I then had an encounter with another new player. We both found guns but didn’t have ammo. We actually had a pleasant conversation and even fought a zombie together with our bare hands. Eventually we parted ways and wished each other luck. I went wandering off into the wilderness but had to eventually circle back to a village because my intended path was cut off from a coastal inlet. While peacefully walking through some lovely meadows I heard the distant crack of a rifle then a second shot a few moments later (the acoustics are astounding in this game). I panicked and thought someone was sniping me but I determined that wasn’t the case and continued my journey. I was dying of thirst and lightheaded but I eventually made it back to a village with a well. Laying next to the well was a body. I checked the pulse which was either weak or absent but the body was still warm. This was the friendly fellow I met 40 minutes ago. I checked to see if I was being stalked by the alleged killer but couldn’t sense anyone and proceeded to quench my dire thirst at the well next to the body of my acquaintance (a ghoulish scene) then loot the poor man’s remains. I closed the night with pulling out my loaded lever-action repeater rifle, squatting in a nearby house, and logging off for the evening.
The only interest I have in DayZ is when the fuckin ArmA devs quit dicking around and backport the engine in to ArmA.
This is a better screenshot than the one above. The well pic is washed out because my guy was on the brink of death so colors were bleeding out of the world at that point.
BETA!!! Next year!
PUBG mode in 3…2…
Creative director Brian Hicks leaving
I certainly have not forgotten my promise to TSM Smak to do a 24-hour stream when DayZ hits 1.0.
Hahahahahah, wonder when that will happen, 2020?
What a squandered opportunity this game has become. I have a lot of strong memories and experiences from both the mod days and early in the Steam EA release. They missed their viable window by a mile.
In a world with battle royales, ARK, even Rust… There’s no place for Day Z anymore.
Edit: Or Unturned, the free to play, low poly Day Z created by a fifteen year old that sees regular updates and high player counts.
1.0 this year!
They just released a beta, apparently.
This thread title is so yesterday.
Edit: They’re kind of ambiguous with their tenses. Sometimes they say they’re going to release the beta, other times they use a tense that says they’re releasing a beta build right now. So I’m not sure if it’s in beta as of this moment or not.
And here we go!
Please clap.
“1.0”
It’s amazing how BI really let this project fall apart. They could’ve been on the cutting edge of the Battle Royale genre, or had the gold standard for the survival genre. Instead, they wound up with this.
I gotta give them credit in one thing: they have followed their passion, instead of the cynic commercial trends.
This is, they have continued updating Arma while totally ignoring a zombie game they never really waned.