Save The Trees Man! Marginalized Wilderness

[Katana67 2907]

So, with the ongoing development in the north, I've noticed that the wilderness areas of the mod have been increasingly marginalized.

 

The addition of cities up north I think will be a great addition to Chernarus. But it has, or had, to be taken into consideration in relation to the overall distribution of wilderness terrain (i.e. undeveloped areas). It isn't good, in my opinion, for them to just add cities without also adding to the wilderness as well.

 

With persistent storage coming, and construction later on, having some white space on the map is essential. If only to make for non-formulaic construction and storage. The same applies for vehicles as well, with fewer potent rural areas in which to store these (which could be stored in a town/city, but with much greater risk of discovery).

 

The only wilderness that remains relatively untouched is the western forest near Myshkino. Coincidentally, this is an area which I frequent.

 

Below I've taken the liberty of outlining some of the areas which have been used to place towns (like Svetlo and others, as this is a dated map) and areas which seem designed to be towns in the future. This is just to give you an idea of how close these new settlements are being placed in proximity to an already marginalized wilderness. Never mind the fact that the areas in the wilderness which appear to be forested, also have roads traversing them, hence the point below.

 

 

As you can see, most of the new areas for towns up north are already situated in areas which were previously forests. Moreover, the areas which were previously forests have been pushed back by large fields.

 

A second point, is the paths that these new destinations create. The points of interest are not as relevant as the paths created by people going to those destinations.

 

Below is a rough heatmap produced by a thread on Reddit, to illustrate the case as it was in the mod.

 

 

As you can see, the density of pathways is far more diffuse NW of NWAF than SE. This is to be expected. However, with the addition of the new towns, I suspect this pathway/density map will become more homogenous across the map. Which is fine, but it means more players in close proximity to already marginalized wilderness.

 

So, what is the point of all that?

 

The wilderness needs to be a destination unto itself, not just an inconvenience whilst moving to town after town over the next hill. It needs to be a destination capable of being an effective canvas for the upcoming additions such as persistent storage, vehicles, and construction. In order for this to happen, the wilderness has to be made wild again by distancing itself from the towns and cities as was the case in the mod.

 

I'm not entirely sure this is possible, given the confines of the current map. But what are your thoughts?

 

DISCLAIMER - Not advocating for impenetrable wilderness, 100% guaranteed hiding spots, or the removal of cities. The latter will still be there, relax.

Edited April 10, 2014 by Katana67

[Murlough 192]

There will still be forest areas as without them hunting would be quite awkward.

[Snowball (DayZ) 115]

Yes

[Deathlove 2280]

You know the one reason i hate Michigan? To much damn forest. Thats why i don't live out in no mans land.

[AryanBoogeyman 185]

Camps will be harder to hide in the much reduced wilderness - no question.

 

Really hoping they give us the tools to make effective stashes - small ground based hides as well as tents/campsites.

 

An effective means to camouflage these things to escape possible aerial detection is also badly needed. Camo tarps/webbing?

 

At any rate the west side of the map will be a crowded campground indeed.

[Katana67 2907]

Camps will be harder to hide in the much reduced wilderness - no question.

 

Really hoping they give us the tools to make effective stashes - small ground based hides as well as tents/campsites.

 

An effective means to camouflage these things to escape possible aerial detection is also badly needed. Camo tarps/webbing?

 

At any rate the west side of the map will be a crowded campground indeed.

 

Agreed, this is sort of my one hope (aside from the less-plausible hope of them adding more wilderness). Camouflage is the one thing that could mitigate the marginalized wilderness.

 

In the mod, even with a relatively robust wilderness, it wasn't all that tough to find stashes. Because they stuck out like sore thumbs. All one had to do was put in a bit of time looking.

 

There's also the possibility, especially with barricading/fortification, of towns themselves being used as areas of storage. Which may help as well.

 

However, as you say, there's less area for people to set up camp in the wilderness. Thus making for a crowded wilderness.

[pillock 850]

There's also the possibility, especially with barricading/fortification, of towns themselves being used as areas of storage. Which may help as well.

 

However, as you say, there's less area for people to set up camp in the wilderness. Thus making for a crowded wilderness.

 

From what I gathered from that Rezzed show and tell, the goal is to make all objects persistent. So, eventually, you'll be able to just drop your spare supplies in odd bushes and they'll stay there, pretty well hidden, until you get back (as long as you can remember where it was, natch).

 

It also depends a great deal on how much they up the server capacities for players and zombies/infected/whateverwe'recallingthems. Zombies are so thin on the ground - and unthreatening when they do show up in their ones and twos - that you don't need to be out in the wilderness to be safe from them; and player footfall in the smaller settlements away from the coast is so low as to be nearly non-existent. You can call an entire village your own for hours - if not days and weeks - on end.

[DedicateDdos 50]

I sincerely hope they'll enlarge the map going further north and west with larger rivers and huge forests with the coastal region being a more industrialized/civilized area. Then again who knows eh.

[DannyRed 32]

I sincerely hope they'll enlarge the map going further north and west with larger rivers and huge forests with the coastal region being a more industrialized/civilized area. Then again who knows eh.

Would be better than what we have now but I think that having north as a wilderness area and the coast as the civilized area is getting a little too repetitive already.

I think that the original size of the map should be increased. Maybe then this wouldn't be north and south only game but a game where the map reaches huge distances so that we have lot of choice to choose from.

After north there should be another big industrial area so that I shouldn't need to run back where I came from. I think it takes the joy away from the adventure and forces you to not search but visit the same areas all over again. Everything will be much worse after the cars come. 

It seems like all we think about is the coast and the north and nothing between. I know that there will be more points of interest in the near future brought for the map but as the op has been saying: it takes the wilderness away that it has already a little too little. Exploring chernarus and discovering everything was one reason why I fell in love with the mod. Now that I know all what's interesting about it makes me want even more from it.

 

Edited April 11, 2014 by DannyRed

[Murlough 192]

i'm with ya OP

SAVE THE TREES!

Pfft id save the trees too for her!

[Katana67 2907]

From what I gathered from that Rezzed show and tell, the goal is to make all objects persistent. So, eventually, you'll be able to just drop your spare supplies in odd bushes and they'll stay there, pretty well hidden, until you get back (as long as you can remember where it was, natch).

 

It also depends a great deal on how much they up the server capacities for players and zombies/infected/whateverwe'recallingthems. Zombies are so thin on the ground - and unthreatening when they do show up in their ones and twos - that you don't need to be out in the wilderness to be safe from them; and player footfall in the smaller settlements away from the coast is so low as to be nearly non-existent. You can call an entire village your own for hours - if not days and weeks - on end.

 

I would assume, that if all items remain persistent, that if you just left them out in the elements, that they'd degrade. Eventually, I mean.

 

I think the more they add (players, construction, persistent objects, etc.) the more that the map's flaws will be amplified.

 

 

I'm worried about the reduction of wilderness too. I would personally rather see hidden small military bunkers in the middle of the forest instead of a whole town. takes away less trees and makes it still worthwhile to trek through the woods

 

I had thought of that a while back, and decided against it (at least as a source of loot). I'd love to see like, dilapidated cabins (like in Overwatch) out in the wilderness. But I think they'd have to be randomized, as it'd get pretty old knowing where every cabin is. And I doubt they'd do that. But certain limited points-of-interest in the wilderness would be awesome. Although, I think the wilderness (like most of DayZ) should be primarily for the player to shape.

 

Would be better than what we have now but I think that having north as a wilderness area and the coast as the civilized area is getting a little too repetitive already.

I think that the original size of the map should be increased. Maybe then this wouldn't be north and south only game but a game where the map reaches huge distances so that we have lot of choice to choose from.

After north there should be another big industrial area so that I shouldn't need to run back where I came from. I think it takes the joy away from the adventure and forces you to not search but visit the same areas all over again. Everything will be much worse after the cars come.

 

Now that I think about it, can anyone tech savvy or familiar with RV comment on how reasonable/possible it is to expand the borders of the map?

[Hetstaine 10852]

 Everything will be much worse after the cars come. 

 

 

I'm not too excited about cars, makes the map very small imo, but it makes no sense to not have them.

 

 

Now that I think about it, can anyone tech savvy or familiar with RV comment on how reasonable/possible it is to expand the borders of the map?

 

 There will have to be if we want a bigger map as didn't the devs just recently state that the map would not be enlarged ?

 

 There really still is quite a large chunk of forest left on the map though, but i feel that there possibly is too many new joints coming and would have preferred something a bit different up North like the often talked about mountain ranges with a city of sorts on the other side, or a Namalsk type region as you travel further North past NWAF..

[Katana67 2907]

There will have to be if we want a bigger map as didn't the devs just recently state that the map would not be enlarged ?

 

There really still is quite a large chunk of forest left on the map though, but i feel that there possibly is too many new joints coming and would have preferred something a bit different up North like the often talked about mountain ranges with a city of sorts on the other side, or a Namalsk type region as you travel further North past NWAF..

 

Hadn't heard the first part, that's promising. They've spoken about expanding the map, but that could mean expanding it in terms of having more cities and locations. Doesn't mean the overall size of the map will expand necessarily.

 

I think we're down to about a third, or half, of the wilderness we had in the mod. Most of the western side is still there up to Lopatino. But most of the northern woods have been pushed noticeably further north, and the woods that are left now have roads and town foundations nearby (if not in them).

 

The woods around NEAF have also been chopped down significantly (in terms of surface area), and are now on the way from two major cities (Berezino and Svetlo) with a high-value shipwreck next to them.

 

I'd say we've lost at least a third of the woods, at least in terms of remote wilderness (to say nothing of actual surface area).

Edited April 11, 2014 by Katana67

[AryanBoogeyman 185]

DayZ de-forestation....  A looming crisis?

 

More at eleven...

 

:)

[artisan661 13]

are they suppose to be adding in a prison or something? where would that go. I think the map should be increased in size....seeing how big altis is in arma 3. im not saying that big, but that would be cool. But at least increase it a little and  just add more forest north and west for a few kilometers?

 

you can run anywhere on foot easy.  Cars idk if that would make it feel to small as far as trying to hide it out in the middle of nowhere. More forest would be better considering their new hunting they are doing. Make more areas west and north that are just forests where you can hunt rare animals, like... bears....rhinos...lol but for real they need to do something more for the standalone. Cant be that hard to increase the map size and add trees. they got like 60mil from people at the least they can do is hire a couple people for $40hr to do this rofl, im just saying...:)

[pilgrim* 3513]

I've given beans to a lot of comments on this thread because I always thought  'real wilderness' was an important part of the gameplay in the vanilla mod, right from the start. I know people who had groups of tents (3 or 5 tents and even vehicles) hidden away for many months without them ever being found.

I spent a lot of time in solo play hunting helicopter bases, when I knew someone was flying a heli, and they were being very careful to follow difficult routs back to their base. This was good game play.

 

It's true it WAS possible to find stashes and tents, especially looking from a distance away with binocs, so you saw the ground as flat and brown.. but it was still a skill, you had to know the land, it still took time, mainly because there was a LOT of wild woodland to cover. I enjoyed all this aspect of the game and I know many other players who were 'mainly' solo and they did and enjoyed the same.. it was POPULAR.. it changed the game. And some - many - of those solo players were bandits and snipers and did not spend their time in the backwoods, they were in town and dangerous, in the thick of it.. but they also had a quiet place they could reach when they wanted to.

 

My own first spawn priority in the mod was to find - an axe, matches, a knife, a bottle or empty can, 2 bandages - (that's ALL - the minimum survive-anywhere kit): Then I knew I could live anyplace on the map - stay away from towns completely if I wanted to. Hunt, make fires, cook, boil water (no risk of infection), and then go back to civilization when I needed extra stuff: bandages, weapons, backpack, antibiotics, compass, whatever. Or go into town or NWAF just for the fun and the excitement. I (boast) was good at moving through trees, watching my back, observing from cover without being seen, crossing country in dead ground, knowing the map, and staying off the roads.

 

Put up a tent somewhere far away, or a stash, well hidden, and you are set up for gameplay. Maybe you will live for SEVERAL days instead of the 4.2 hours lifetime it claimed on the mod page. Maybe even a week or 2 or more. The 'humanity' points, and then the score book was a nice plus.

 

NOW so much of the wilderness is open - it's looks to me more like good tank battle country than wilderness survival country. It reminds me of civilised farmland and many of the forests look like commercial stands of trees planted as a crop. (not all - but too much of it)

 

There IS still always real wilderness (forests) but so many of the forests now, you can see through from one side to the other.. easy to follow players, much more difficult to hide.. more difficult to hunt. Most forest does not look any more like a place you would find wild boar or deer. I know many of the old solo players from the mod agree - there are threads repeating this. AND on top of the rest, the 'wild' areas are not only open farmland in many cases, they are ALSO being built up. Urban civilisation seems to be taking over.

 

OK - so maybe the SA will be a different game for wilderness and survival - we shall see. But I worry about it.

There are roads and tracks all over the north - the only main advantage of tracks in the mods was that gangs of bandits could drive around fast wasting anything they found. Now there are MANY tracks.

 

OK - that's my rant/complaint. Maybe the old system of wilderness survival will be replaced with a good new system. At the moment I haven't heard anything about a new system (apart from stone fireplaces and cooking on primus stoves). Why not just cut logs with an axe, make a campfire, cook your meat boil your water, and move on.... is that no longer possible?

 

But all those roads, together with all the players who want to shoot from cars, makes me think of GTA... maybe I'm just a complainer?

 

Finally, it's pretty hard to hide in a tree now.. you have to find a GOOD tree, and just lying down under overgrown branches doesn't work any more, as you spawn standing up (so in the country you log in already vulnerable and at least partly in the open)

 

Scuse me - my rant. [end]

 

xx pilgrim

Edited April 12, 2014 by pilgrim

[AshleyP 121]

Camps will be harder to hide in the much reduced wilderness - no question.

 

Camps were highly visible in the mod because the engine was terrible at drawing distant foliage, and the terrain was often just a series of enormous flat triangles. The tents stood out, especially from the air, because as soon as you ran off all the foliage disappeared. I suspect that it'll be easier to hide stuff in the mod, because the engine is slightly better and the stashes are likely to be smaller. It's difficult enough spotting things like can openers in a room, ideally you should be able to coat a gun with grease and bury it somewhere.

 

Just being able to bury things would be fab; it would justify including a GPS receiver or radio beacons (and a spade).

 

KWOETE:

somebmanr person oplayer 10 april 12:34 pm said:

"Cars"

 

I eagerly await cars. I relish the prospect of cars. I can't wait for cars. You can hear 'em coming from a mile off. Bullets slice through 'em like bullets slicing through a car.* I'm going to kill so many people in cars. They'll be driving along, listening to the engine, not paying attention to their surroundings, and then WHAM they hear the crashing steel, taste the steering wheel, and the handbrake penetrates their thigh as they die in flaming agony inside the bullet-ridden corpse of an automotive iron maiden. And there will be a big explosion - a big explosion of joy inside my heart.

 

* That's an example of subversion. It's a double subversion; you're expecting "like a hot knife through butter", but I chose a different analogy. And it's not even an analogy, it's just a literal description. Which is funny because you weren't expecting it.

[Katana67 2907]

Camps were highly visible in the mod because the engine was terrible at drawing distant foliage, and the terrain was often just a series of enormous flat triangles. The tents stood out, especially from the air, because as soon as you ran off all the foliage disappeared. I suspect that it'll be easier to hide stuff in the mod, because the engine is slightly better and the stashes are likely to be smaller. It's difficult enough spotting things like can openers in a room, ideally you should be able to coat a gun with grease and bury it somewhere.

 

Just being able to bury things would be fab; it would justify including a GPS receiver or radio beacons (and a spade).

 

While I think that our options for hiding stuff will be better (i.e. smaller, camouflaged, etc.) the amount of space necessary to sustain these things, whilst at the same time remaining clandestine, is still relevant (not saying you're saying it isn't).

 

Point being, even if they allow us to better camouflage our stashes, the effect won't be a significant because we're playing in a smaller area (in terms of the wilderness). To say nothing of basebuilding.

[r3volution (DayZ) 19]

Totally endorse this thread. I think its a massive concern that the true wilderness areas in the north are now host to a valley full of heavy industry and high value buildings. I think it's fantastic that the standalone has taken such a survival oriented focus in terms of features. But it does concern me that they're rapidly removing anywhere to utilise these new features without being shot from a nearby apartment block or military installation.

 

I too used to love the metagame of placing camps and finding deserted spots off the beaten track. But without the sprawling forests of the north I think we're rapidly running out of places that will be unfrequented in order to stash a campsite.

 

SAVE THE FORESTS! (also a bit more undergrowth in the forests would be awesome, just to make them seem a bit less like tame pine plantations and to also make it harder to see people and tents)/

[frosti 2165]

Never forget Pobeba dam.

[pilgrim* 3513]

Never forget Pobeba dam.

 

yep - and all the heavy forest and hidden valleys around it stretching to the west and the east

those were the northern highlands

gone

Edited June 28, 2014 by pilgrim

[Esccapee 45]

I don't understand why this post ins't getting more attention. OP put a lot of effort into explaining something that's happening to the map, something that I agree with 100%.

 

Save the wilderness. 

[gibonez 3633]

Never forget Pobeba dam.

 

Wait what ? it is now gone ?

[victusmortuus 1074]

Wait what ? it is now gone ?

 

It's been gone a long time. It's very sad, that place was great.

[rickyspanish 158]

Good thread, I love the changes and new cities and towns offering more places to see and loot. But with these additions the wilderness is becoming too little. My hope is that they will add to the map size and add a nice thick layer of trees, lakes, highlands, marshlands and random abandoned campsites similar to crash sites but spawn little food and have a few previous occupants in zombie form.