Fog, Weather and Building States: Visual Variety & Disorientation

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

This reddit discussion got me thinking; Dean has talked often about his desire to impart a sense of disorientation to DayZ players. He seems to like the idea of players feeling unsure, unsafe and isolated.

 

I think this works really well at the moment for new players. Your first dozen or so spawns, especially if they take place at night, can leave you absolutely confounded about your location. Once inland, it can be really hard to keep track of your orientation and make progress toward an intended destination. 

 

I remember one of my earliest days in the mod distinctly; I was trying to make my way to Vybor from Kamenka to meet up with my squad. I ran for what seemed like an hour through darkened forests. Just when I thought I must be getting close to my destination, I heard the sound of waves and my heart absolutely sank. I had turned completely around at some point without realizing it. In some ways, it was a bummer; but in others it was so completely authentic it left me feeling exhilarated. Never before had I played a game where just getting from one place to another could hold so much drama.

 

The problem is, once you've logged a few hundred hours in Chernarus, the effect wears off. I've been over the map so many times, the landscape has become second nature to me. Drop me off anywhere on the map (within reason) and I can give you my location to within a few quads within minutes. The turn of a road, the slope of the land, the apperance of a distant landmark - all these things serve to orient veteran players. 

 

Now, in some sense this is a good thing. People should benefit from exploration and experience by being more familiar with the territory. But, it does remove some of the drama of exploration.

 

I think there are some authentic ways we could recapture the sense of disorientation for veterans, and make them work just a little bit harder to keep track of their location. This would increase the drama of travel, but would also make items like the compass that much more valuable.

 

 

1) Fog

 

It can be a headache form a performance and implementation standpoint, but I think properly done fog would be an incredible addition to DayZ. Imagine a thick blanket of fog rolling over your area. You're crouch-walking to approach a city with visibility limited to less than 100m. At any moment a zed or player could emerge from the fog ahead rushing toward you. Just typing it makes me nervous and I'm not even in game.

 

Beyond the atmospheric benefits, fog would prevent players from spotting distant landmarks like city skylines or radio towers. It would get harder to keep your bearings in the wilderness.

 

 

 

2) Heavy Rain, Thunder, Lightning

 

This shares many of the same benefits as fog, but unlike fog it also obscures sound which can make listening for nearby footsteps or distant gunshots even harder. This is disorienting not only from the viewpoint of terrain recognition and exploration, but from a tactical standpoint when it comes time to decide if that was thunder you heard or a distant shotgun blast.

 

I think we can all appreciate what rain did for this scene:

 

 

 

3) Snow, Winter Foliage

 

Probably the most complicated from an implementation standpoint, but also one of the most interesting. I think snow cover would be a great way to increase disorientation. It's amazing how even a light snow cover and a change in foliage can make a scene look completely different. You might recognize something in spring or summer that ends up looking entirely transformed when snows fall.

 

Consider the following images of essentially the same location, one in summer and another in winter. Would you immediately recognize this as the same place if you saw it weeks or months apart?

 

--> 

 

 

4) Building States

 

One of the things that makes it pretty easy to get your bearings is that buildings in Chernarus are very distinct and static. Even something as simple as a small group of wooden sheds at an intersection (I'm thinking of you 112x107 west of Tulga) can immediately be identified by an experienced player.

 

What if buildings did not always appear the same way? If building models had a couple states in which they could spawn, and one of the possible models was chosen at server restart, things would look a bit different over time. Buildings could have a range of states such as: intact, somewhat damaged, very damaged, completely demolished.

 

Barring actualy dynamic building damge (which would obviously be ideal and perhaps possible down the road), one of these states could simply be chosen at server start up. So, passing the same group of sheds by the road might look different from one week to the next.

 

There's a little bit of strangeness here where one day a building might be destroyed and the next back intact, but I think we can overlook that for the increased visual variety this would create (we don't seem to mind gas stations which explode one day and are back the next).

Edited January 31, 2014 by ZedsDeadBaby

[wild_man 4442]

+1 for weather effects :beans: